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PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 





Paul gazed up at the presses that towered high above 
his head. Frontispiece. See page 1 79. 



W\)e ^Intention Series! 


PAUL AND THE 
PRINTING PRESS 

BY 

SARA WARE BASSETT 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
A. O. SCOTT 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1920 




Copyright , 1920 , 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved 
Published April, 1920 


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MAY 1920 


WfltfoOOtJ 

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A, 


©CU571094 


“ . . . Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold 
The arch-enchanter’s wand ! — Itself a nothing — 
But taking sorcery from the master-hand 
To paralyze the Caesars — and to strike 
The loud earth breathless ! — Take away the sword 
States can be saved without it ! ” 

— Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu 


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It gives me pleasure to acknowledge the kind- 
ness of Mr. Edwin A. Grozier, the Editor and 
Publisher of The Boston Post , and the courtesy 
of his employees who have offered me every as- 
sistance in the preparation of this manuscript. 

S. W. B. 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Paul Cameron Has an Inspiration . . i 

II The Class Meeting and What Followed It 13 

III Mr. Cameron Takes a Hand in the Game 27 

IV Another Ally 41 

V Paul Gives Thanks for His Blessings . 50 

VI A Game of Cards 61 

VII A Mad Tea Party 74 

VIII The Romance of Bookmaking ... 86 

IX Paul Embarks on Another Venture . . 101 

X A Disaster 111 

XI Temptation Assails Paul . . . .125 

XII Temporizing 138 

XIII The Camerons Have a Visitor . . .149 

XIV Paul Makes a Pilgrimage to the City . 162 

XV The Decision 184 

XVI An Amazing Miracle 195 

XVII The Clouds Clear 203 

XVIII Graduation 212 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Paul gazed up at the presses that towered high 

above his head Frontispiece 

“The March Hare I ” he repeated with enthusiasm. 

“You Ve hit it, Cart I” page io 

More than one dignified resident of the town 

struggled into an incongruous garment . . “ 74 

“But I can’t take your money, Mr. Carter,” 

gasped Paul “ 137 



PAUL AND THE PRINTING 
PRESS 


CHAPTER I 

PAUL CAMERON HAS AN INSPIRATION 

It was the vision of a monthly paper for the 
Burmingham High School that first turned Paul 
Cameron’s attention toward a printing press. 

“Dad, how much does a printing press 
cost ? ” he inquired one evening as he sat down 
to dinner. 

“A what ? ” 

“ A printing press.” 

Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from 
the roast he was carving. 

“ Aren’t you a trifle ambitious ? ” 

Paul laughed. 

“ Perhaps I am,” he admitted. “ But I have 
oft^n heard you say, ‘ Nothing venture, noth- 
ing have.’” 

It was his father’s turn to laugh. 

“Yet why does your fancy take its flight 
toward a printing press ? ” 


2 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


Eagerly Paul bent forward. 

“Why you see, sir,” he explained, “ever 
since I was chosen President of ’20 I ’ve wanted 
my class to be the finest the Burmingham High 
ever graduated. I want it to leave a record 
behind it, and do things no other class ever has. 
There has never been a school paper. They 
have them in other places. Why shouldn’t 
we?” 

Mr. Cameron was all attention now. 

“ We ’ve plenty of talent,” went on Paul with 
enthusiasm. “ Even Mr. Calder, who is at the 
head of the English department, asserts that. 
Dick Rogers has had a poem printed in the town 
paper — ” 

He saw a twinkle light his father’s eye. 

“Maybe you’d just call it a verse,” the boy 
smiled apologetically, “ but up at school we call 
it a poem. It was about the war. And Eva 
Hardy has had an essay published somewhere 
and got two dollars for it.” 

“ You don’t say so!” 

“ Besides, there is lots of stuff about the foot- 
ball and hockey teams that we want to print — 
accounts of the games, and notices of the 
matches to be played. And the girls want to 
boom their Red Cross work and the fair they 
are going to have. There ’d be plenty of ma- 
terial.” 

“ Enough to fill a good-sized daily, I should 
think,” remarked Mr. Cameron, chuckling. 


PAUL HAS AN INSPIRATION 


3 


Paul took the joke good-naturedly. 

“How do people run a paper anyhow ?” he 
questioned presently. “Do printing presses 
cost much? And where do you get them? 
And do you suppose we fellows could run one 
if we had it?” 

His father leaned back in his chair. 

“ A fine printing press is a very intricate and 
expensive piece of property, my son,” he re- 
plied. “ It would take several hundred dollars 
to equip a plant that would do creditable work. 
The preparation of copy and the task of getting 
it out would also take a great deal of time. 
Considering the work you already have to do, 
I should not advise you to annex a printer’s 
job to your other duties.” 

He saw the lad’s face cloud. 

“ The better way to go at such an undertak- 
ing,” he hastened to add, “would be to have 
your publication printed by some established 
press.” 

“ Could we do it that way ? ” 

“ Certainly,” Mr. Cameron nodded. “ There 
are always firms that are glad to get extra work 
if paid satisfactorily for it.” 

There was a pause. 

“The pay is just the rub,” Paul confessed 
frankly. “ You see we have n’t any class treas- 
ury to draw on; at least we have one, but 
there’s nothing in it.” 

The two exchanged a smile. 


4 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ But you would plan to take subscriptions,” 
said the elder man. “ Surely you are not going 
to give your literary efforts away free of 
charge.” 

“N — o,” came slowly from Paul. Then 
he continued more positively. “ Oh, of course 
we should try to make what we wrote worth sell- 
ing. We’d make people pay for it. But we 
could n’t charge much. Most of us have been 
paying for our Liberty Bonds and haven’t a 
great deal to spare. I know I have n’t.” 

“About what price do you think you could 
get for a school paper ? ” 

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought much 
about it. Perhaps a dollar, or a dollar and a 
quarter a year. Not more than that.” 

“ And how many members would be likely to 
take it?” 

Paul meditated. 

“There are about fifty seniors,” he said. 
“But of course the other three classes would 
subscribe — at least some of them would. We 
should n’t confine the thing simply to the doings 
of the seniors. We should put in not only gen- 
eral school news but items about the lower 
classes as well so that the paper would interest 
everybody. It ought to bring us in quite a little 
money. Shouldn’t you think we could buy a 
press and run it for two hundred dollars?” 

“ Have you considered the price of paper and 
of ink, son?” 


PAUL HAS AN INSPIRATION 5 

“ No; but they can’t cost much,” was the san- 
guine response. 

“ Alas, they not only can but do ” replied his 
father. 

“ Then you think we could n’t have a school 
paper.” 

“ I did not say that.” 

“ Well, you mean we could n’t make it pay.” 

“I shouldn’t go so far as that, either,” re- 
turned Mr. Cameron kindly. “What I mean 
is that you could not buy a printing press and 
operate it with the money you would probably 
have at hand. Nevertheless there are, as I 
said before, other ways of getting at the matter. 
If I were in your place I should look them up 
before I abandoned the project.” 

“How?” 

“ Make sure of your proposition. Find out 
how many of your schoolmates would pledge 
themselves to subscribe to a paper if you had 
one. Then, when you have made a rough es- 
timate of about how much money you would be 
likely to secure, go and see some printer and 
put the question up to him. Tell him what you 
would want and find out exactly what he could 
do for you. You ’ve always been in a hurry to 
leave school and take up business. Here is a 
business proposition right now. Try your 
hand at it and see how you like it.” 

Mr. Cameron pushed back his chair, rose, 
and sauntered into his den; and Paul, familiar 


6 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


with his father's habits, did not follow him, for 
he knew that from now until late into the even- 
ing the elder man would be occupied with law 
books and papers. 

Therefore the lad strolled out into the yard. 
His studying was done ; and even if it had not 
been he was in no frame of mind to attack it 
to-night. A myriad of schemes and problems 
occupied his thought. Slowly he turned into 
the walk and presently he found himself in the 
street. 

It was a still October twilight, — so still that 
one could hear the rustle of the dry leaves as 
they dropped from the trees and blew idly along 
the sidewalk. There was a tang of smoke in 
the air, and a blue haze from smoldering bon- 
fires veiled the fall atmosphere. 

Aimlessly Paul lingered. No one was in 
sight. Then the metallic shrillness of a bicycle 
bell broke the silence. He wheeled about. 
Noiselessly threading his way down the village 
highway came a thick-set, rosy-faced boy of 
sixteen or seventeen years of age. 

“Hi, Carter ! ” called Paul. “Hold on! I 
want to see you.” 

Carter grinned ; stopping his wheel by rising 
erect on its pedals, he vaulted to the ground. 

“What's up, Paul?” 

Without introduction Paul plunged into his 
subject. He spoke earnestly and with boyish 
eloquence. 


PAUL HAS AN INSPIRATION 7 

“ Say, Cart, what do you think of ’20 start- 
ing a school paper ? ” 

“ A paper ! Great hat, Kipper — what for ? ” 

Kipper was Paul’s nickname. 

“ Why, to read, man.” 

“Oh, don’t talk of reading,” was Melville 
Carter’s spirited retort. “Aren’t we all red- 
eyed already with Latin and Roman history? 
Why add a paper to our troubles ? ” 

Paul did not reply. 

“What do you want with a paper, Kipper?” 
persisted Melville. 

“ Why, to print our life histories and obitu- 
aries in,” he answered. “To extol our friends 
and damn our enemies.” 

Carter laughed. 

“ Come off,” returned he, affectionately 
knocking Paul’s hat down over his eyes. 

“ Stop your kidding, Cart. I ’m serious.” 

“You really want a newspaper, Kip? An- 
other newspaper! Scott! I don’t. I never 
read the ones there are already.” 

“ I don’t mean a newspaper, Cart,” explained 
Paul with a touch of irritation. “I mean a 
zippy little monthly with all the school news in 
it — hockey, football, class meetings, and all the 
things we ’d like to read. Not highbrow stuff.” 

“ Oh ! I get you, Kipper,” replied young Car- 
ter, a gleam of interest dawning in his face. 
“That wouldn’t be half bad. A school pa- 
per!” he paused thoughtfully. “But the 


8 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


money, Kip — the money to back such a 
scheme? What about that?” 

“We could take subscriptions.” 

“ At how much a subscrip, oh promoter ? ” 

“I don’t know,” Paul responded vaguely. 
“ One — twenty-five per — ” 

“ Per — haps ” cut in Melville, “and perhaps 
not. Who do you think, Kipper, is going to 
pay a perfectly good dollar and a quarter for 
the privilege of seeing his name in print and 
reading all the things he knew before ? ” 

In spite of himself Paul chuckled. 

“ Maybe they would n’t know them before.” 

“Football and hockey! Nix! Don’t they 
all go to the games ? ” 

“Not always. Besides, we’d put other 
things in — grinds on the Freshies — all sorts 
of stuff.” 

“ I say ! That wouldn’t be so worse, would 
it?” declared Melville with appreciation. 

He looked down and began to dig a hole in 
the earth with the toe of his much worn 
sneaker. 

“Your idea is all right, Kip — corking,” he 
asserted at length. “But the ducats — where 
would those come from? It would cost a pile 
to print a paper.” 

“ I suppose we couldn’t buy a press second- 
hand and do our own printing,” ruminated 
Paul. 

“Buy a press!” shouted Carter, breaking 


PAUL HAS AN INSPIRATION 


9 


into a guffaw. “ You are a green one, Kip, even 
if you are class president. Why, man alive, a 
printing press that ’s any good costs a small for- 
tune — more money than the whole High 
School has, all put together. I know what 
presses cost because my father is in the publish- 
ing business.” 

Paul sighed. 

“That’s about what my dad said,” he af- 
firmed reluctantly. “He suggested we get 
some one to print the paper for us.” 

“ Oh, we could do that all right if we had the 
spondulics.” 

“The subscriptions would net us quite a 
sum.” 

“ How much could we bank on? ” 

“ I ’ve no idea,” Paul murmured. 

“I’ll bet I could nail most of the Juniors. 
I ’d simply stand them up against the wall and 
tell them it was their money or their life — 
death or a subscription to the — what are you 
going to call this rich and rare newspaper ? ” he 
inquired, suddenly breaking off in the midst of 
his harangue and turning to his companion. 

“ I had n’t got as far as that,” answered Paul 
blankly. 

“ But you ’ve got to get a name, you know,” 
Melville declared. “ You can’t expect to boom 
something so hazy that it is n’t called anything 
at all. Don't you want to take our class paper 
won’t draw the crowd. You’ve got to start 


10 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


with a slogan — something spectacular and 
thrilling. Buy the Nutcracker! Subscribe to 
the Fire-eater! Have a copy of the Jabber- 
wock! For goodness sake, christen it some- 
thing ! Start out with a punch or you ’ll never 
get anywhere. Why not call it The March 
Haref That’s wild and crazy enough to suit 
anybody. Then you can publish any old trash 
in it that you chose. They’ve brought it on 
themselves if they stand for such a title.” 

Paul clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. 

“The March Hare!” he repeated with en- 
thusiasm. “ You ’ve hit it, Cart ! The March 
Hare it is! We’ll begin getting subscriptions 
to-morrow.” 

“ You wouldn’t want to issue a sample copy 
first, would you?” Melville suggested. 

“No, siree! That’ll be the fun. They 
must go it blind. We ’ll make the whole thing 
as spooky and mysterious as we can. Nobody 
shall know what he is going to eat. It will be 
twice the sport.” 

“ But suppose after you ’ve collected all your 
money you find you can’t get any one to print 
the paper ? ” 

“We’ll have to take a chance,” replied Paul 
instantly. “If worst comes to worst we can 
give the money back again. But I shan’t fig- 
ure on doing that. We ’ll win out, Cart; don’t 
you worry.” 

“Bully for you, old man! You sure are a 





“ The March Hare ! ” he repeated with enthusiasm. 
“You’ve hit it. Cart!” Page 10. 





PAUL HAS AN INSPIRATION 


n 


sport. Nothing like selling something that 
does n’t even exist ! I see you years hence on 
Wall Street, peddling nebulous gold mines and 
watered stocks.” 

“Oh, shut up, can’t you!” laughed Paul 
good-naturedly. “ Quit your joshing ! I ’m se- 
rious. You’ve got to help me, too. You 
must start in landing subscriptions to-mor- 
row.” 

“I! I go around rooting for your March 
Hare when I know that not a line of it has seen 
printer’s ink ! ” sniffed Melville. 

“Sure!” 

Melville grinned. 

“ Well, you have a nerve ! ” he affirmed. 

“You’re going to do it just the same, Cart.” 

There was a compelling, magnetic quality in 
Paul Cameron which had won for him his lead- 
ership at school ; it came to his aid in the pres- 
ent instance. 

Melville looked for a second into his chum’s 
face and then smiled. 

“All right,” he answered. “I’m with you, 
Kipper. We’ll see what we can do toward 
fooling the public.” 

“ I don’t mean to fool them,” Paul retorted. 
“ I ’m in dead earnest. I mean to get out a good 
school paper that shall be worth the money 
people pay for it. There shall be no fake 
about it. To-morrow I shall call a class meet- 
ing and we ’ll elect an editorial staff — editor- 


12 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


in-chief, publicity committee, board of manag- 
ers, and all the proper dignitaries. Then 
we 'll get right down to work." 

Melville regarded his friend with undis- 
guised admiration. 

“ You 'll make it a go, Kip ! " he cried. “ I 
feel it in my bones now. Hurrah for the 
March Hare ! I can hear the shekels chinking 
into our pockets this minute. Put me down 
for the first subscription. I'll break the gin- 
ger-ale bottle over the treasury." 

“ Shall it be a dollar, a dollar and a quarter, 
or an out and out one-fifty?" 

“Oh, put it at one-fifty. We’re all million- 
aires and we may as well go in big while we 're 
at it. What is one-fifty for such a ream of wis- 
dom as we're going to get for our money?" 

Melville vaulted into his bicycle saddle. 

“Well, I'm off, Kipper," he called over his 
shoulder. “Got to do some errands for the 
Mater. So long!" 

“ I can depend on you, Cart ? " 

“ Sure you can. I '11 shout for your March 
Hare with all my lungs. I 'm quite keen about 
it already." 

Paul watched him speed through the gather- 
ing shadows and disappear round the turn in 
the road. Then, straightening his shoulders 
with resolution, he went into the house to seek 
his pillow and dream dreams of the March 
Hare . 


CHAPTER II 


THE CLASS MEETING AND WHAT FOL- 
LOWED IT 

The following day at recess, after a noisy 
clamor of conversation and laughter, the class 
meeting came to order. 

“ I have called you together to-day,” began 
Paul Cameron from the platform, “to lay be- 
fore 1920 a new undertaking. I am sure there 
is not one of you who does not want to make 
our class a unique and illustrious one. The 
Burmingham High School has never had a pa- 
per. 1920 has the great opportunity to give it 
one and to go down to history as its founder.” 

He paused. 

“ The big dailies do not appreciate us. They 
never write us up. Why should we not write 
ourselves up — chronicle our doings, that such 
noteworthy deeds may never be forgotten? ” 

A ripple of laughter greeted the interroga- 
tion. 

Paul saw his advantage and went on. He 
painted in glowing terms his dream of the 
March Hare . Every instant the interest and 
enthusiasm of his audience increased. Once 


i 4 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

a storm of clapping broke in upon his words but 
he raised his hand and the noise ceased. 
Quietly he closed his modest speech with the 
suggestion that a managing board be appointed 
to put the project into operation, if such were 
the pleasure of the meeting. Before he could 
seat himself a dozen boys were on their feet. 

“Mr. President!” shouted Melville Carter. 

“ Mr. President ! ” came at the same moment 
from Donald Hall. 

“Mr. President! Mr. President!” The 
cry rang from every corner of the room. 

Paul listened to each speaker in turn. 

1920 was not only unanimous but insistent 
upon the new venture. 

In less time than it takes to tell it Paul him- 
self was elected editor-in-chief, an editorial 
staff had been appointed, Melville Carter was 
voted in as business manager, and Billie Ran- 
some as publicity agent. Nor did 1920’s fer- 
vor end there. Before the meeting adjourned 
every person in the class had not only pledged 
himself to subscribe to the March Hare but had 
promised to get one or more outside subscrip- 
tions. 

Paul, descending from the speaker’s desk, 
was the center of an admiring and eager group 
of students. 

“ I say, Kip, where are you going to get the 
paper printed?” questioned Donald Hall. 

“I don’t know yet,” replied Paul jauntily. 


THE CLASS MEETING 15 

“We’ll have to see how much money we are 
going to have.” 

“ Why don’t you get Mel Carter’s father to 
do it ? He publishes the Echo , and Mel is our 
business manager. That ought to give us some 
pull.” 

Paul started. 

“ I never thought of asking Mr. Carter,” he 
returned slowly. “ I don’t believe Melville did, 
either. He’s kind of a grouch. Still, he 
could n’t do more than refuse. Of course the 
Echo is pretty highbrow. Mr. Carter might 
feel we were beneath his notice.” 

“ No matter,” was Donald’s cheerful answer. 
“ I guess we could live through it if he did sit 
on us. Besides, maybe he would n’t. Perhaps 
he’d enjoy fostering young genius. You said 
you were going to make the paper worth while 
and something more than an athletic journal.” 

“Yes, I am,” retorted Paul promptly. 
“We’ve got to make it tally up with what the 
subscribers pay for it. I mean to put in 
politics, poetry, philosophy, and every other 
sort of dope,” he concluded with a smile. 

“You certainly are the one and only great 
editor-in-chief!” chuckled Donald. Then he 
added hastily: “There’s Melville now. Why 
don’t you buttonhole him about his father?” 

“ I will,” cried Paul, hurrying across the cor- 
ridor to waylay his chum. 

“Hi, Cart!” 


16 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


Melville came to a stop. 

“Say, what’s the matter with your father 
printing the March Hare for us ? ” 

“What!” The lad was almost speechless 
with astonishment. 

“I say,” repeated Paul earnestly, “what’s 
the matter with your father printing the March 
Hare f He prints the Echo. Don’t you be- 
lieve he ’d print our paper too? ” 

Melville was plainly disconcerted. 

“I — I — don’t know,” he managed to stam- 
mer uneasily. “You see, the Echo office is 
such a darn busy place. My father is driven 
most to death. Besides, we could n’t pay much. 
It would n’t be worth the bother to the Echo ” 

“Maybe not,” said Paul. “But don’t you 
think if your father knew we were trying to run 
a decent paper he might like to help us out? 
Who knows but some of us may become dis- 
tinguished journalists when we grow up? 
There may be real geniuses in our midst — 
celebrities.” 

“ Great Scott, Paul, but you have got a wily 
tongue! You’ve kissed the Blarney Stone if 
ever man has ! ” 

But Paul was not to be cajoled from his pur- 
pose. 

“ Won’t you put it up to your Pater when you 
go home, Cart?” 

“/ ask him!” exclaimed Melville, drawing 
back a step or two. “I couldn’t, Kip. Don’t 


THE CLASS MEETING 


1 7 

put me in such a hole. I would n’t dare. 
Straight goods, I wouldn’t. You don’t know 
my dad. Why, he would n’t even hear me out. 
He ’d say at the outset that it was all rot and 
that he could n’t be bothered with such a 
scheme.” 

“You absolutely refuse to ask him?” 

Melville turned a wretched face toward Paul. 

“ I ’d do most anything for you, Kip,” he said 
miserably. “You know that. But I couldn’t 
ask favors of my father for you or anybody 
else. He isn’t like other people. I’d go to 
any one else in a minute. But Father’s so — 
well, it would just take more nerve than I ’ve 
got. He ’s all right, though. Don ’t think he 
isn’t. It’s only that he’s pretty stiff. I’m 
afraid of him; straight goods, I am.” 

Paul nodded. 

“I see.” 

There was an awkward pause. 

“ Would you have any objection to somebody 
else going to him? ” 

“You?” 

“ Possibly.” 

“Not the least in the world,” Melville de- 
clared. “ I don’t see why you should n’t if you 
want to take a chance. You’ll have no luck, 
though.” 

“ He could n’t any more than kick me out.” 

“He’ll do that all right!” Melville ex- 
claimed, with a grin. 


18 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


“What if he does?” asked the editor-in- 
chief with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“ Well, if you don’t mind being turned down 
and swept out of the office before your mouth 
is fairly open, go ahead.” 

“I shan’t go to the office,” responded Paul 
deliberately. “ I shall go around to the house.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” 

“Why not?” 

“Well, I don’t know why — only it makes 
Father as mad as hops to be disturbed about 
business after he gets home.” 

“ I ’m not supposed to know that, ami?” 

“N — o.” 

“ Then I shall come to the house,” reiterated 
Paul firmly. “Your father will have more 
leisure there and I think he will be more likely 
to listen.” 

“ He won’t listen to you anywhere.” 

“We’ll see whether he will or not,” said 
Paul. “ At least I can make my try and con- 
vince myself.” 

“It’ll be no use, Kip,” persisted Melville. 
“ I hate to have you disappointed, old chap.” 

“ I shan’t be disappointed,” said Paul kindly. 
“ I shan’t allow myself to expect much. Even 
if your father does turn me down he may give 
me a useful pointer or two.” 

“ He won’t do anything for you,” Melville as- 
serted dubiously. “ He ’ll just have nothing to 
do with it.” 


THE CLASS MEETING 


19 

In spite of Paul’s optimism he was more than 
half of Melville’s opinion. 

Mr. Carter was well known throughout 
Burmingham as a stern, austere man whom 
people feared rather than loved. He had the 
reputation of being shrewd, close-fisted, and 
sharp at a bargain, — a person of few friends 
and many enemies. He was a great fighter, 
carrying a grudge to any length for the sheer 
pleasure of gratifying it. Therefore many a 
more mature and courageous promoter than 
Paul Cameron had shrunk from approaching 
him with a business proposition. 

Even Paul did not at all relish the mission be- 
fore him ; he was, however, too manly to shirk 
it. Hence that evening, directly after dinner, 
he made his way to the mansion of Mr. Arthur 
Presby Carter, the wealthy owner of the Echo , 
Burmingham’s most widely circulated daily. 

Fortunately or unfortunately — Paul was 
uncertain which — the capitalist was at home 
and at leisure ; and with beating heart the boy 
was ushered into the presence of this illustrious 
gentleman. 

Mr. Carter greeted him politely but with no 
cordiality. 

“ So you ’re Paul Cameron. I ’ve had deal- 
ings with your father,” he remarked dryly. 
“ What can I do for you?” 

Paul’s courage ebbed. The question was 
crisp and direct, demanding a reply of similar 


20 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


tenor. With a gulp of apprehension the lad 
struggled to make an auspicious opening for 
his subject; but no words came to his tongue. 

“ Perhaps you brought a message from your 
father/’ suggested the great man, after he had 
waited impatiently for an interval. 

“No, sir. Father didn’t know that I was 
coming,” Paul contrived to stammer. “ I came 
on my own account. I wanted to know if you 
would n’t like to print the March Hare, a new 
monthly publication that is soon coming out.” 

“ The March Hare!” repeated Mr. Carter in- 
credulously. 

Paul nodded silently. 

“Did I hear aright?” inquired Mr. Carter 
majestically. “Did you say the March 
Hare f” 

The title took on a ludicrous incongruity as 
it fell from his lips. 

“ Yes, sir,” gasped Paul. “We are going to 
get out a High School paper and call it the 
March Hare.” 

Mr. Carter made no comment. He seemed 
too stunned with amazement to do so. 

“We want to make it a really good paper,” 
went on Paul desperately. “The school has 
never had a paper before, but I don’t see why 
it should n’t. We ’re all studying English and 
writing compositions. Why should n’t we 
write something for publication?” 

“ Why, indeed ! ” 


THE CLASS MEETING 


21 


There was a note of sarcasm, or was it rid- 
icule, in the words, that put Paul on his mettle. 

“ We intend to make it a good, dignified mag- 
azine, ’’ he went on quickly. “ We plan to have 
the school news and some more serious articles 
in it. We’ve got a managing board, and an 
editorial staff, and all the things papers have.” 

“ And why do you come to me ? ” 

“ Because we need a printer.” 

“ You wish me to print this remarkable doc- 
ument ? ” 

Paul smiled ingenuously. “ Yes, sir.” There 
was a silence. Mr. Carter seemed too dum- 
founded to speak. 

“ You see,” went on the boy, “ getting out a 
paper would give us fellows some business ex- 
perience and at the same time some practice in 
writing. I believe we could make the thing 
pay, too.” 

“ How many subscribers have you? ” 

“I had two last night — myself and another 
boy,” Paul replied. “But to-day I have a 
hundred and fifty; by to-morrow I expect to 
add about two hundred more.” 

“Your circulation increases rapidly,” re- 
marked Mr. Carter, the shadow of a smile on 
his face. 

“Yes, sir, it does,” came innocently from 
Paul. 

“ How many numbers would you wish to is- 
sue annually?” 


22 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


“Ten. We’d want to bring out a paper 
the first of each month from October to June. 
With our studies, that would be about all we 
could handle, I guess.” 

“ I guess so, too,” agreed Mr. Carter causti- 
cally. 

“How large a paper do you plan to have?” 
he added an instant later. 

“ Oh, I had n’t thought much about that. It 
would depend on how much space we could fill 
up. Perhaps twenty-five pages.” 

The magnate nodded. 

It was impossible to fathom what was going 
on in his mind. Was he preparing to burst 
into a tirade of ridicule, or was he really consid- 
ering the proposition? 

“We’d want some good sort of a cover, of 
course,” Paul put in as an afterthought. 

“ In colors, I suppose.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ And nice paper and clear print.” 

“Yes, indeed,” said Paul, not noting the in- 
creasing sarcasm in the man’s voice. 

“How much would you charge for an an- 
nual subscription ? ” 

“A dollar and a half.” 

“Have you any idea what it would cost to 
get out a paper such as you propose ? ” There 
was a ring of contempt in the words. 

“No, sir.” 

“ Well, it would cost a good deal more money 


THE CLASS MEETING 


23 

than you have to offer, young man.” With a 
cruel satisfaction he saw the boy's face fall. 

“ Then that 's the end of it, I guess, so far as 
your firm is concerned/' replied Paul, turning 
toward the door. “ I 'll have to take my propo- 
sition somewhere else." 

Something in the boy's proud bearing ap- 
pealed to the man. It had not dawned on him 
until now that the lad actually considered the 
proposal a strictly business one. He had 
thought that he came to wheedle and beg, and 
Mr. Carter detested having favors asked of him. 
Calling Paul back, he motioned him to sit down. 

“ I 'm not ready to wind up this matter quite 
so quickly," he observed. “Let us talk the 
thing over a little more fully. Suppose I were 
to make you a proposition." 

Leaning forward, he took a cigar from the 
library table and, lighting it, puffed a series of 
rings into the air. 

“ There are certain things that I want to do 
in Burmingham," he announced in leisurely 
fashion. There was a twinkle of humor be- 
neath the shaggy brows. “Your father, for 
example, does n't take the Echo. He has none 
too cordial feeling toward me personally, and in 
addition he says my paper is too conservative. 
Then there are firms that I can’t get to adver- 
tise with us — business houses in the town that 
are not represented on our pages. And lastly, 
Judge Damon has constantly refused to do a 


24 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

set of political articles for me. Put those deals 
through for me, and I’ll print your March 
Haver 

He leaned back in his chair, regarding Paul 
with a provoking smile. 

“ But how can I ? ” gasped Paul, bewildered. 

Mr. Carter shrugged his shoulders. 

“ That's up to you,” he said. “ Sometimes 
fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Your 
father, for instance, will certainly want this 
venture of yours to succeed. Tell him that if 
he takes the Echo instead of the Mirror , or in 
addition to it, it will be a big help to you.” 

“But my father — ” burst out Paul, then 
stopped suddenly. 

“ I know he does n’t like me,” put in Mr. Car- 
ter calmly. “We differ in politics and we’ve 
had one bad set-to on the subject. He won’t 
take my paper — wouldn’t do it for love or 
money. I know perfectly well how he feels.” 

“So that’s why you want to make him do 
it?” 

“ Never you mind, sonny. I want you to get 
him to. That ’s enough,” was the curt retort. 

Paul flushed. 

“ And with regard to the advertising I men- 
tioned,” continued Mr. Carter, “ I am sure you 
can easily carry that through. The Kimball 
and Dalrymple boys are in your class, aren’t 
they?” 

“Yes, sir.” 


THE CLASS MEETING 


25 


“Tell them the Echo wants an ad. from the 
firm of George L. Kimball and from Dalrymple 
and Company/’ 

“Oh!” 

“As for Judge Damon — well, if you can’t 
manage the judge, I can’t tell you how to do it. 
All is, I want six articles on The League of 
Nations. He’s an authority on international 
law and the best man I know to handle the sub- 
ject. He has n’t, however, much more use for 
me than your father has, and thus far has 
politely refused every offer I ’ve made him.” 

“ Carl Damon is on our March Hare literary 
staff,” ventured Paul. 

“There you are!” declared Mr. Carter 
triumphantly. “ Set him at his father’s heels 
and tell him to bring me the six articles I ’m 
after. Then you boys flax round and get me 
ten new firms to advertise in the Echo and I ’ll 
sign a contract with you to print your March 
Hare in good shape.” 

The lips of the elder man curled humorously. 

Paul rose. 

“ It ’s mighty good of you, sir,” he mur- 
mured. 

“Don’t thank me, youngster, until you’ve 
landed your bargain,” protested Mr. Carter 
with shame-faced haste. “Remember I said 
that when you had fulfilled my conditions then 
I would print your March Hare; I shan’t do it 
until then.” 


26 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


“ But I am sure we can fulfill them.” 

“ You seem very certain of it.” 

“I feel so.” 

“ Humph! Have you ever tried to get an 
ad?” 

“ No, sir.” 

''Or asked your father why he didn’t take 
the Echo?” 

“No.” 

“Or tried to worm an article out of Judge 
Damon?” 

Paul shook his head. 

“Then you’ve some fun ahead of you,” re- 
marked Mr. Carter, rising. “I’d wait to do 
my crowing if I were you.” 

With a grim laugh and a gesture of farewell 
he .swept the boy from the room. 


CHAPTER III 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND IN THE 
GAME 

As Paul walked down the steps of the Carter 
mansion he felt, as did David Copperfield in the 
presence of the waiter, very young indeed. 
Had Mr. Carter simply been making game 
of him ? And was the business world actually 
such a network of schemes and complexities ? 

And how did it happen that the printing of a 
newspaper was such a difficult and expensive 
undertaking? Why should it be? 

Paper and ink were common enough com- 
modities surely. All that had to be done was 
to print, and if a press were at hand it must be 
the easiest thing in the world to do that. Why 
did people make such a fuss over printing a 
paper ? 

Thoughtfully he walked home and turned in 
at his own door. 

He was in a very sober frame of mind, un- 
wontedly sober for him ; so sober, in fact, that 
his father, whom he encountered in the hall, 
exclaimed : 

“ Goodness me, son, you look as if your last 


28 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


friend on earth had perished. What’s the 
matter ? ” 

The boy smiled faintly. 

“ Nothing, sir.” 

“But you’d never look like that if there 
were n’t. Come, tell me all about it. What ’s 
the trouble ? ” 

The gray eyes of the man regarded the lad 
kindly. 

“I’m — I’m just thinking.” 

“ About what, pray ? Something pretty sol- 
emn, I ’ll be bound,” persisted his father. 

“ Oh, I ’ve a lot of things on my mind,” an- 
swered Paul hesitatingly. 

“Suppose you give me a sample of one of 
them.” 

“Just business,” replied Paul. 

As the words fell with familiar cadence, Mr. 
Cameron laughed. How often he had met his 
wife’s troubled inquiries with the same retort. 

“Business, eh! And how long is it since 
the burdens of business have fallen on your 
young shoulders ? ” 

“ Since yesterday.” 

“And already you are bowed to the earth 
with worry?” commented his father playfully. 
“Come, son, what’s troubling you?” 

“ The school paper.” 

“Not going to be able to put it through ? ” 

“ Oh, it ’s not that,” said Paul quickly. “ We 
are going to put it through all right, although 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 29 

at this moment I don’t exactly see how. I had 
no idea it cost so much to get a paper printed.” 

" It isn’t the actual printing, so much as the 
typesetting and all that goes with it, that makes 
printing an expensive job,” explained Mr. Cam- 
eron. "Just now, too, paper and ink cost a 
great deal, and labor is high.” 

“ Did people always have to pay so much for 
paper ? ” 

"People didn’t always use to have paper, 
my son.” 

Paul opened his eyes. 

" What did they print on, then ? ” 

" They did n’t have printing presses, either,” 
answered Mr. Cameron. "Long ago people 
did not care so much for reading as we do now. 
Most of them had n’t education enough to read 
a book or a paper if they had had one. In fact, 
many kings, bishops, and persons of rank could 
neither read nor write. Charlemagne could 
not sign his own name. The era before the 
Renaissance was an age of unbelievable igno- 
rance. It is a marvel that with the turmoil of 
war and the utter lack of interest in anything 
intellectual any learning came out of the pe- 
riod.” 

" But are n’t there very old writings in some 
of the museums ? ” 

"Yes, we have manuscripts of very ancient 
date,” agreed his father. " Much of the matter 
in them however — material such as the Norse 


30 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Sagas and the Odes of Horace — were handed 
down by word of mouth and were not written 
until long after they had been chanted or sung. 
Poets and minstrels passed on their tales to 
other bards ; had they not done so, Homer, Os- 
sian, and the Sanscrit Vedas would have been 
lost to us. A metric arrangement of the stories 
was probably made to aid the singers in remem- 
bering their subject matter. You know how 
much easier it is to memorize something that 
has a swing or rhythm?” 

Paul nodded. 

“That without question accounts for the 
poetic form in which some of our oldest litera- 
ture has come down to us,” Mr. Cameron said. 
“ Then, as good luck would have it, Roman and 
Greek slaves were compelled to copy many of 
the writings of the time on long rolls of vellum 
or papyrus, and in that way more of the ancient 
literature was preserved. There was only a 
small reading public in either Rome or Greece, 
and those who were interested in books could 
secure what they wished through professional 
scribes, or could listen to readings of the clas- 
sics from the portico of some rich nobleman 
who had been fortunate enough to secure a copy 
of some rare poem or play. Often, too, such 
things were read in the baths, which in those 
days took the place of our modern clubs.” 

“And that was the way we got our early 
books?” 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 31 

“Yes. There were slaves whose duty it 
was to do nothing but copy manuscripts for 
their masters. They were given food, shelter, 
and clothing in return for their labors. Of 
course they were not an educated class of work- 
ers, and in consequence they often made mis- 
takes; but they served to prevent the total de- 
struction of such classics as — ” 

“Caesar’s Commentaries, I suppose,” inter- 
rupted Paul mischievously. 

“ Caesar’s writings would have been a great 
loss,” declared his father good-humoredly. 

“ Not to me ! Nor Cicero’s either.” 

“ But are they not all old and interesting as 
a relic of history? ” 

“They are more interesting now that you 
have told me something about them,” admitted 
Paul, with characteristic honesty. 

“Oh, you would find many interesting and 
even amusing irtcidents connected with these 
early writings, were you to study into the mat- 
ter,” continued Mr. Cameron. “Fancy, for 
example, a hand-written scroll of a book selling 
for the equivalent of two cents in our money; 
and fancy others not selling at all, and being 
used by grocers to wrap up spices and pastries. 
The modern author thinks he is paid little 
enough. What, I wonder, would he say to 
such treatment ? ” 

Paul laughed. 

“ Even at a later date when the monks began 


32 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS , 

copying and illuminating manuscripts there 
was at first no great demand for them. Learn- 
ing was conceded to be the rightful possession 
of the rich and powerful, and whether the kings 
or nobles of the court could read or not, most 
of the books were bought by them simply as art 
works. Many, of course, especially the most 
skillfully illuminated ones, were very beautiful 
and were well worth owning.” 

“ But think of the time it must have taken to 
make them by hand ! ” speculated Paul. 

“Time was no object in those days,” smiled 
his father. “There was nothing to hurry 
about. A monk would toil at a single manu- 
script day after day, month after month; some- 
times year after year. It must have been a 
sleepy, tiresome business to write out even a 
short manuscript so carefully, to say nothing of 
a long one like the Bible. What wonder that 
the patient workers were so glad when their 
tedious task was done that they inscribed at 
the end of it a little song of thanksgiving. I 
remember seeing one old book in a European 
museum at the end of which was written : 

‘“This book was illuminated , bound , and 
perfected by Henry Cremer , vicar of the Col- 
legiate Church of Saint Stephen in Metz, on 
the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed 
Virgin, in the year of our Lord 1456. 

“ ‘ Thanks be to God, Hallelujah V 

“No doubt the pious Henry Cremer was 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 33 

thankful for many other things besides the 
completion of his manuscript, but I am sure he 
must have been human enough to draw a sigh 
of relief when he put the last stroke to such a 
tedious piece of work. Don’t you think so ? ” 

“ I ’ll bet he was,” agreed Paul. 

“ Can’t you see those patient monks alone in 
their dimly lighted cells, silently writing day 
after day ? ” continued Mr. Cameron. “ Many 
a poor fellow who drudged so mechanically at 
his task copied the errors in the text quite as 
faithfully as the rest of it. In consequence, it 
at last became imperative to demand that the 
scribes work with more intelligence, and there- 
fore at the end of a manuscript would be such 
an admonition as this : 

‘“I adjure thee zvho shall transcribe this 
book by our Lord Jesus Christ , and by His glo- 
rious coming to judge the quick and the dead , 
that thou compare what thou transcribest and 
correct it carefully according to the copy from 
which thou transcribest , and that thou also an- 
nex a copy of this adjuration to what thou hast 
written ! 

“Thus, you see, was the copyist forced to 
study his text and pass the caution against mis- 
takes on to others. Nevertheless, solemn and 
reverent as was this warning, it did not prevent 
errors from slipping into the old illuminated 
manuscripts, and many a one is marred by mis- 
spelling or miswording.” 


34 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ I don’t wonder it is,” exclaimed Paul. 
“ Why, the very thought that I must not make 
a mistake would cause me to make one. Be- 
sides, I should get so sleepy after I had written 
for hours that I should not know what I was 
doing.” 

“ Probably much of the time they didn’t.” 

Paul thought a moment. 

“ I suppose, though, the monks were paid for 
their hard work, so it was only fair for them to 
be careful,” he reflected. 

“ On the contrary,” replied his father, “ they 
were not paid any more than were the slaves 
whom the Greeks and Romans employed. 
Their living was given them; that was all. 
Often the books they made were very beautiful 
and were sold to dignitaries of the Church or to 
titled persons for great sums ; but any monies 
received from such a transaction went into the 
coffers of the Church and not into the monks’ 
pockets. The Church however, in return, pro- 
vided them with all they needed so they did not 
go entirely unrewarded. Some day when we 
can find time we will go to the city and hunt up 
some of these rare old manuscripts in the 
museum. You would be interested to see how 
exquisitely many of them are done. The initial 
letter, or frequently the catch word, is painted 
in color, and the borders are richly decorated 
with intricate scroll-work.” 

“ Did the monks have to design the pages as 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 35 

well as print them?” inquired Paul with sur- 
prise. 

“ The same monk did not always do all the 
work,” his father said. “ Some merely in- 
scribed the text and illuminated the first letter 
or word ; afterward the sheets were handed to 
some one else who designed the decoration and 
sketched it in. Then it went to the colorist, 
who in turn illuminated, or painted, the draw- 
ing. You will find every inch of some of the 
more ornate manuscripts filled in with designs. 
The great objection to this method was that sev- 
eral persons handled the work and therefore in 
many cases the decoration had no relation 
whatsoever to the text; in fact, frequently it 
was entirely inappropriate to it.” 

Paul smiled. 

“ No more relation, I suppose, than the text 
of our school paper will have to its name: 
March Hare .” 

“Just about the same,” conceded his father 
with amusement. “ So that ’s the title you ’ve 
selected for your monthly?” 

“Yes, sir. We couldn’t seem to think of 
anything better.” 

“ It ’s not bad at all. How are you coming 
on with the project? You seem bothered.” 

“I am — a little.” 

“What’s the matter? Haven’t you money 
enough to induce anybody to print your publi- 
cation ? ” 


36 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“Oh, I have a printer,” replied Paul confi- 
dently. “ The Echo is going to get it out for 
us.” 

“The Echo!” Mr. Cameron regarded the 
lad incredulously. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“But — but — how in the name of goodness 
did you pull off a bargain like that ? ” demanded 
the man. “ The Echo of all people ! Why, I 
should as soon think of asking the government 
to do it! Their rates are enormous and they 
never take outside work. Are you quite sure 
they have agreed to do it? ” 

“Yes. There’s no mistake about it, Dad. 
They were perfectly serious. They made a 
few conditions, though.” 

“ Whom did you see ? ” 

“ Mr. Carter.” 

“ Carter ! Mr. Carter himself ? Mr. Arthur 
Carter?” 

“Yes.” 

“ My soul and body ! ” murmured Mr. Cam- 
eron. “ I would n’t have believed he ’d see you. 
You did have a nerve, son ! Why, nobody ever 
asks a favor of Carter. I would n’t, for a thou- 
sand dollars. It ’s a marvel he listened to you. 
And he is actually going to print your paper ? ” 

“ Yes, sir — that is, under certain conditions.” 
Paul waited an instant, then added dryly : “ In 
fact, Dad, you’re one of the conditions.” 

“ I ! ” 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 3 7 

The boy chuckled. 

“ Uh-huh. He wants you to subscribe to the 
Echo ” 

“ He does, does he ! ” Mr. Cameron cried with 
indignation. “The impertinence of the man! 
Well, he can continue to want me to. When he 
finds me doing it he will be years older than he 
is now. What does he think? Does he ex- 
pect to turn me from a broad-minded Democrat 
into a stand-pat Republican like himself ? The 
old fox! He just enjoyed sending me that 
message, and by my own son, too. I ran 
against him for Mayor in 1916 and lost the 
fight because I wouldn’t use the weapons he 
did. You were a little chap then and so do not 
remember much about it; but it was a nasty 
business. Since that day we ’ve never spoken. 
Take his paper ! I would n’t so much as look at 
it if he offered it to me free of charge on a sil- 
ver salver.” 

Paul regarded his father with consternation. 

“ But I say, Dad, if you don’t help us out, it ’s 
all up with the March Hare ” 

“ I can’t help that,” blustered Mr. Cameron, 
striding impatiently across the hall. “Why, 
it ’s preposterous ! He ’s making a goat of you, 
son, that ’s all. He never meant to print your 
paper. He simply made up a lot of conditions 
that he knew could never be fulfilled and sent 
you away with them. It was a mean trick. 
Just like him, too ! He ’d think it a great joke.” 


38 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“I don’t believe he was joking,” Paul an- 
swered slowly. “And anyway, even if he 
were, I don’t have to take it as a joke. I can 
take him seriously, fulfill his contract, and make 
him live up to his agreement, can’t I ? Then if 
the whole thing were a joke, the joke would be 
on him.” 

Mr. Cameron gazed into the boy’s eager face 
a few seconds, then smiled suddenly. 

“That’s not a bad idea,” he observed. 
“ We ’d have Carter fast in his own trap then.” 

“To be sure.” 

<f By Jove, Paul — if I haven’t half a mind 
to help you out ! ” He slapped his son on the 
shoulder. “I’ll do it! I declare if I won’t. 
I ’ll send in my subscription to the Echo to-mor- 
row. I needn’t read the thing, even if I do 
take it. What other tasks did the old schemer 
impose on you?” 

“I’ve got to get some ads for him — ten of 
them.” 

“Whew!” 

“ And I ’ve got to ask Judge Damon for six 
articles on The League of Nations.” 

“ Ha, ha ! That ’s a good one,” chuckled Mr. 
Cameron. “The League of Nations is like a 
red rag to the Judge. He can’t be trusted to 
speak of it, let alone writing about it.” 

“ Mr. Carter said Judge Damon was an ex- 
pert on international law,” explained Paul. 

“ So he is, so he is ! But he is n’t expressing 


MR. CAMERON TAKES A HAND 39 

his opinion of The League of Nations, just the 
same.” 

“ You think he would n't do the articles ? ” 

“ Do them ? Mercy, no ! ” 

“ Then I guess it was all a joke,” murmured 
Paul, with a wistful, disappointed quiver of the 
lip. 

Mr. Cameron saw the joyousness fade from 
the young face. 

“ It was contemptible for him to put up such 
a game on you kids ! ” he ejaculated. 

Thrusting his hands into his pockets he 
stared up at the ceiling. 

“I'm not so sure,” he presently remarked 
slowly, “but what, if your uncle knew the cir- 
cumstances, he might be coaxed into meeting 
Carter's demand.” 

“Do you think so?” 

Again courage shone in Paul's eyes. 

“ I 'm pretty sure of it.” 

The lad's brow became radiant. 

“ I 'll see Damon myself,” went on Cameron 
humorously. “ I 'll tell him I have yielded up 
my preferences for the common good and that 
he must do the same. His son Carl is in your 
class, isn't he?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Then it 's as much his duty to help on 1920 
as mine. He adores that boy of his. You 
leave him to me. I 'll bring him round to our 
way of thinking all right.” 


40 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ And the ads?" 

“ Set your classmates on their fathers," was 
the terse reply as the elder man clapped on his 
hat and left the house. 

Paul watched him out of sight, then sighed a 
happy little sigh of satisfaction. With such a 
sympathetic colleague to fall back upon he felt 
confident the March Hare would succeed. 


CHAPTER IV 


ANOTHER ALLY 

Mr. Cameron was as good as his word. 

The next morning when Paul appeared at 
breakfast, he was greeted with the words: 
“Well, I won Damon over. You’re to go 
around there this evening and he ’ll have a pa- 
per ready for you to the effect that in considera- 
tion of the Echo printing the March Hare , the 
judge will write for the Echo six articles on the 
pros and cons of The League of Nations. You 
are to get Carter to sign this agreement and 
then we’ll lock it up in my strong box at the 
bank.” 

“ That ’s bully, Dad. It was mighty good of 
you to take this trouble for us.” 

“ That ’s all right, son. I ’m always glad to 
help you boys out. Besides,” he added whim- 
sically, “ I am not entirely philanthropic. The 
thing amuses me. I always enjoy beating 
Carter when I get the chance.” 

Paul regarded his father affectionately. 
The big man seemed very human just at that 
moment, — little more, in fact, than a boy like 
himself. 


42 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“Then, as I understand it, all we fellows 
have to do now is to round up the ten ads.,” he 
said, dropping into his chair at the table and 
vigorously attacking his grape-fruit. 

“What ads. are you talking about, Paul?” 
asked his mother, who had just entered the 
room. 

“Oh, we boys down at school want to get 
some ads. to help publish our new paper.” 

Mrs. Cameron listened while the plans of the 
March Hare were unfolded to her. 

“Hill and Holden, the Garden Street gro- 
cers, are going to put a new coffee on the mar- 
ket; their man told me about it yesterday and 
said they were going to advertise it very exten- 
sively.” 

“There’s your chance, Paul!” cried Mr. 
Cameron. “ Call them up this minute and nail 
them before they send the advertisement to the 
papers. We’re customers of theirs and with- 
out doubt they’d just as soon send their an- 
nouncement to the Echo through you. Tell 
them they will be doing a service to the High 
School pupils, most of whose families’ names 
are on their books.” 

Paul needed no second bidding. He sprang 
to the telephone. A few instants later he re- 
entered the room with sparkling eyes. 

“ O. K. ! ” he said. “ I talked with one of the 
firm who said they would be glad to help us 
out. They ’ll prepare the ad. and let me have 


ANOTHER ALLY 43 

it to-morrow. They want a quarter of a 
page.” 

“They do? Well, well, Paul! That should 
net the Echo something,” Mr. Cameron re- 
marked. “ If all the boys’ mothers help them 
as yours has, your March Hare will be a cer- 
tainty by to-morrow.” 

“ You were a brick, Mater.” 

“ I just happened to recall hearing the man 
speak of it,” returned Mrs. Cameron. 

Nevertheless it was quite evident that she 
was pleased to aid her boy. 

“ You don’t remember happening to hear any 
one else mention advertising, do you, my 
dear?” asked her husband. 

“I’m afraid not,” was his wife’s laughing 
reply. 

“ Don’t tease Mater, Dad,” said Paul. 
“She’s done her bit. May the others do as 
well.” 

Rising from breakfast, he bent and kissed his 
mother affectionately. 

“ I ’m off to school ! ” he called. “ I shall put 
this advertising stunt up to the business man- 
ager. He ’s got to expect to have something to 
do.” 

“ That ’s right, Paul,” returned Mr. Cameron 
approvingly. “ The clever business man is the 
one who organizes his affairs and then throws 
at least a part of the responsibility of carrying 
them out on the men in his employ. Nobody is 


44 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

ever interested in an undertaking in which he 
has no part. Share your work with the other 
fellow if you want to get the best out of him. 
Put it on his shoulders and make him feel that 
you expect him to do it — that you trust him to 
do it. He ’ll do ten times as much for you and 
he will pull with you — not against you. We ’re 
all human and like to be important. Remem- 
ber that in handling men. It is one of the great 
secrets of success. Now off with you ! You ’ll 
be late if you stand here philosophizing.” 

Away scampered Paul. A moment later his 
wheel was crunching over the blue gravel of 
the driveway and speeding down the macadam 
road. Soon he was in the classroom. 

Excitement ran high that morning. What 
Caesar did in Gaul, what Cyrus and the Silician 
Queen had to say to one another was of far less 
import to the agitated students than what the 
Class of 1920 did that day in Burmingham. 
Nevertheless the recitations dragged on some- 
how and by and by the geometries, Roman his- 
tories, and the peregrinations of Cyrus were 
tucked into the desks, and the staff of the 
March Hare got together for a hurried busi- 
ness meeting in the corridor. 

The boys were enthusiastic that Paul had 
found a printer. 

“ Hurrah for you, Kipper ! ” they shouted. 

“ Good work, old man ! ” 

“ Leave it to Kip ! ” they cried in chorus. 


ANOTHER ALLY 


45 

“ You ’ll have to get the ads.,” announced 
Paul. “ I ’ve secured one. I leave the rest of 
them to you.” 

“ Right-o ! We’ll ’tend to them,” piped 
Donald Hall with assurance. 

“ My father’s firm has never advertised,” de- 
clared Dave Chandler. “ I ’ll put it up to Pater 
when I get home.” 

“ My uncle will help us out ; I bet he will,” 
promised Oscar Hamilton. “ Robey and Ham- 
iltofi, you know.” 

“The more the merrier,” responded Paul 
gayly. “ Just call me up this evening and tell 
me what luck you ’ve had.” 

“Sure, old fellow! We’ll do that!” came 
from the boys as they dispersed. 

The remainder of the morning Paul mingled 
fragments of chemistry and Greek with visions 
of the March Hare , and the moment school was 
out he dashed home to complete his studying 
and get it out of the way that he might be free 
to go to see Judge Damon directly after dinner. 

Despite the dignity of his profession the 
judge was a much less formidable person to 
face than Mr. Arthur Presby Carter. He was 
a simple, kindly man, with an ingratiating smile 
and a keen sympathy with human nature. He 
was, moreover, very fond of young people. 
He liked all boys, seeming never to forget the 
fact that he himself had been one of them not 
so many years ago. 


46 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Therefore, no sooner had Paul presented 
himself at the front door than he was shown 
into the study where, before a bright fire blaz- 
ing on the hearth, the judge sat smoking. 

“ Come in, Paul,” he called cordially. “ Your 
father told me about this undertaking of yours, 
and I hear I am to be one of your victims.” 

“ I ’m afraid you are, sir.” 

“Well, well! I suppose doing what we do 
not enjoy is good for our characters,” returned 
the judge mischievously. “If you boys pro- 
pose to do some serious writing of English and 
secure a little business experience, certainly 
your aim is a worthy one and we older folks 
should back you up. It ’s a far more sensible 
vent for your energv, to my mind, than so much 
football.” 

“ Oh, we ’re not going to give over our foot- 
ball, sir,” asserted Paul with prompt candor. 

“No, indeed! Keep up your games by all 
means. But moderation is a jewel. A little 
football goes a good way, while business train- 
ing is never amiss.” 

“We expect to get quite a bit of business 
training out of issuing our paper,” said Paul 
modestly. 

“ And in order to do it, you young rascals are 
going to rope me into your schemes, are you? ” 
demanded the judge. 

“ Mr. Carter is.” 

“ It’s the same thing — or rather it isn’t the 


ANOTHER ALLY 


47 

same thing, for what I would not consent to 
do for Mr. Carter I am going to do for you 
boys.” 

Paul murmured his thanks. 

“Tut, tut! Say no more about it,” Judge 
Damon commanded hastily. “ My son is in the 
class, you know; surely I should be showing 
little loyalty to 1920 if I were not ready to help 
make it glorious; and even if I had no boy in 
the High School it would be the same. I 
should be glad to promote so worthy an under- 
taking.” 

From the litter of papers on the desk the man 
took up a crisp white sheet which he folded 
carefully and slipped into an envelope. 

“ There is a legal contract for Mr. Carter to 
sign,” he said. “ It states that in consideration 
of the Echo Press printing ten numbers of the 
March Hare , I am to furnish Mr. Carter with 
six articles on the League of Nations.” 

“ It ’s mighty good of you, sir.” 

The judge waved his hand. 

“Don’t let the favor oppress you, sonny,” 
he said. “Along with your father I am hav- 
ing my little joke on Carter. I ’d like to see his 
face when you confront him with this bit of 
paper. He ’ll be bound to carry out his bargain 
whether he likes it or not.” 

“You don’t think he’ll back down.” 

“Carter back down! No, indeed. Mr. 
Carter is a man of his word. Although I dif- 


48 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

fer from him on just about every possible sub- 
ject, I am glad to give the devil his due. What 
he promises he will stick to; never fear,” Judge 
Damon declared quickly. 

This prediction proved to be no idle one for 
when, within two or three days, Paul presented 
himself once more in the library of Mr. Arthur 
Presby Carter and placed in that august per- 
son’s hand not only the ten advertisements for 
the Echo but his father’s subscription to the 
same paper, and the written agreement of the 
judge, Mr. Carter, although plainly chagrined, 
did not demur. 

On the contrary he glanced keenly at the 
youthful diplomat, observing grimly: 

“ You are an enterprising young man, I will 
say that for you. I should not mind knowing 
to what methods you resorted to win these con- 
cessions from these stern-purposed gentlemen. 
Did you bribe or chloroform them ? ” 

The boy laughed triumphantly. 

“ Neither, sir.” 

“The judge, for example — I can’t imagine 
what influence could have been brought to bear 
on him to have achieved such a result. I have 
offered him a good price for those articles and 
he has repeatedly refused it. And now he is 
going to do them for nothing.” 

“ He just wanted to help us out.” 

“ And your father ? ” 

“ He was game, too.” 


ANOTHER ALLY 


49 


Mr. Carter was silent. 

“Well, I guess I can be as good a sport as 
they can,” he observed at length. “ Get your 
material together for your first number of the 
March Hare and bring it over to the Echo of- 
fice. I ’ll see that one of our staff gives you a 
lesson on how to get it into form. Have you a 
typewriter ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ Know how to run one? ” 

“No” 

“That’s unlucky. We don’t like to handle 
copy that is n’t typed. It ’s too hard on the eyes 
and takes us too long. However, we must 
make the best of it, I suppose. Only be sure 
to write plainly and on but one side of the pa- 
per ; and do not fold or roll your sheets. That 
is one thing no publisher will stand for — rolled 
manuscript. Remember that.” 

“I will, sir.” 

“I guess that’s all for now. Good night, 
youngster.” 

“Good night, sir.” 

Although the leave-taking was curt it was 
not unkind and Paul returned home with a feel- 
ing that in spite of what he had heard of Mr. 
Carter’s character he neither feared nor dis- 
liked the gruff man; in fact, in the sharp-eyed 
visage there was actually something that ap- 
pealed. To his surprise the lad found himself 
rather liking Mr. Carter. 


CHAPTER V 


PAUL GIVES THANKS FOR HIS BLESSINGS 

When Paul came into the house that after- 
noon his father called to him from the little den 
off the hall. 

“ Come here a moment, son,” he cried. 
“ I Ve something to show you.” 

The boy hurried forward, all curiosity. He 
found his father seated before a desk on which 
was spread an old manuscript, brightened here 
and there by letters of blue or scarlet. 

“ Strangely enough, Mr. Jordan, the curio 
collector, was in my office to-day and had this 
treasure with him. When I mentioned that I 
should like to have you see it, immediately, in 
most generous fashion, he suggested that I 
bring it home and show it to you. It is almost 
priceless and of course I demurred; but he in- 
sisted. He had just bought it at an auction in 
New York and was, I fancy, glad to find some 
one who was interested and would appreciate 
it. It is not complete; if it were it would be 
very valuable. It is just a few stray sheets 
from an ancient psalter. Nevertheless its 


PAUL GIVES THANKS 


5i 

workmanship is exquisite and it is well worth 
owning. Notice the beautiful lettering.” 

Paul bent over the vellum pages. The man- 
uscript, now spotted by age, was marvelously 
penned, being written evenly and with extreme 
care in Latin characters. 

“Were all the old books written in Latin?” 
he inquired with surprise. 

Mr. Cameron nodded. 

“ Yes, and not only were the first manuscripts 
and books phrased in Latin but most of the very 
early printed books were written in the same 
language,” he answered. “ In those days learn- 
ing was not for the general public. There was 
no such spirit of democracy known as now 
exists. It cheapened a thing to have it within 
the reach of the vulgar herd. Even Horace, 
much as we honor him, once complained because 
some of his odes had strayed into the hands of 
the common people 'for whom they were not 
intended/ Books, in the olden time, were 
held to be for only the fortunate few. The 
educated class considered a little learning a 
dangerous thing. If the people got to know 
too much they were liable to become unruly and 
less easy to handle. Therefore books were kept 
out of their reach. In Germany there was 
even a large fine and the penalty of imprison- 
ment imposed on any one who printed, pub- 
lished, or bought a book translated from the 
Latin or Greek unless such translation had pre- 


52 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

viously been censored by the authorities. 
Hence the people who could not read the lan- 
guages were entirely cut off from all litera- 
ture.” 

“ I never heard of such a thing ! ” exclaimed 
Paul indignantly. 

“No, you never did, thank God! We live 
in an age and a country of freedom. But the 
world has not always been so easy or so com- 
fortable a place to live in as it is now.” 

Mr. Cameron touched the manuscript before 
him daintily with his finger, betraying by the 
gesture the reverence of the true book-lover. 

“This book,” he remarked, “is, as you see, 
done on vellum. Most of the illuminators of 
ancient books preferred that material for their 
work. Papyrus such as the Romans used was 
too brittle to be folded or sewed, and therefore 
could not be bound into book form ; it had to be 
rolled on rollers, and even then was liable to 
crack. It was far too perishable for bookmak- 
ing. Hence the old scribes turned to vellum, or 
sheepskin. But later, when the printing press 
came along, vellum became very unpopular in- 
deed, because the grease in the skin spread the 
ink or else would not absorb it, and the harsh 
surface destroyed the type. Even had these 
difficulties not arisen, vellum would have had 
to be abandoned since the number of skins de- 
manded for the making of a thick book was 
prohibitive. Imagine three hundred unlucky 


PAUL GIVES THANKS 


53 

sheep offering up their skins in order to produce 
one of the first printed Bibles ! ” 

“ Great Scott ! ” Paul whistled, regarding his 
father with incredulity. 

“ I was as surprised as you when I read the 
statement,” declared his father. “At that 
rate, where would the sheep be in a little while ? 
All slaughtered and made into books. For- 
tunately the public of that day did not, as I 
have already explained, care much for reading; 
so perhaps that is the secret why some of the 
sheep were spared.” 

“Why didn't they print their books on pa- 
per?" inquired Paul thoughtlessly. 

“Paper, you must remember, was not yet 
discovered ; that is, it was unknown in western 
Europe. It had been in use in China, however, 
for some time; but China was not a generous 
country that spread its inventions to other 
lands. What the Chinese discovered they kept 
to themselves. Nor, in fact, was there any 
extended means of spreading such things ex- 
cept through the primitive methods of conquest 
or travel. Wars enough there were, it is true; 
but travel was very infrequent. Moreover, I 
seriously doubt if scribes would have used pa- 
per at just that period if they had had it. The 
first attempts at paper-making resulted in a 
crude, coarse product that was regarded with 
great scorn by the rich ; and as for printed mat- 
ter, the educated classes considered it a great 


54 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

drop from handwork and too common a thing 
to be purchased.” 

“ How ridiculous ! ” 

“ It smacked of the masses,” laughed Mr. 
Cameron. “ Elegant persons refused to use 
anything so cheap. Snobbery existed among 
the ancients, you see, quite as extensively as in 
our own day, and a possession was only valu- 
able while it was the property of the fortunate 
few. The instant it came within the reach of 
everybody it was no longer desirable in their 
eyes. Your snob always treasures a thing less 
for its intrinsic value than because other people 
cannot have it. So it was among the snobs 
that lived hundreds of years ago; the species 
has not materially changed. No sooner did 
learning become general through the use of the 
printing press, and become accessible to the 
man in moderate circumstances than it lost its 
savor for the rich, and many a noble boasted 
that he was unable to read, write, or spell. 
Learning suddenly became a vulgar accom- 
plishment, a thing to be spurned, ridiculed, and 
avoided.” 

“ I never heard of anything so absurd ! ” Paul 
said with contempt. 

“ It is no more absurd than is much of our 
present-day philosophy of life,” replied Mr. 
Cameron. “With all our enlightenment we 
have not yet outgrown many of our follies.” 

He stopped, smiling whimsically to himself. 


PAUL GIVES THANKS 


55 

Paul bent over the richly colored pages on 
the table. 

“ I don't see," he remarked, “ how they ever 
bound such stuff as this." 

“ The books of that early time were indeed a 
marvel," mused his father. “ They were not 
at all like the books we know now. Most of 
them were ponderous affairs with board covers 
from one to two inches thick. Around many 
of these covers went a metal band, usually of 
iron, to keep the boards from warping; and in 
addition this band was frequently fastened 
across the front with a mammoth clasp. Some- 
times there were even two of these bands. The 
corners also were protected with metal, and to 
guard the great volume from wear while it lay 
upon its side, massive, round-headed nails stud- 
ded both covers. More of these big nails were 
set in the metal corners." 

“ The thing must have weighed a ton ! " ex- 
claimed Paul. 

“ A single book was a far heavier commodity 
than you would have cared to hold in your lap," 
smiled Mr. Cameron. “ In fact, it was impos- 
sible to hold one of them ; hence we find the old- 
time reading desk used as a support. It was 
indispensable." 

“ But what on earth could a person do with 
such a book? " asked Paul. “ Two or three of 
them would fill a room." 

“ Almost," laughed his father. “ People did 


56 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

not pretend to own many of them. In the first 
place they cost too much ; and in the next place 
one could not have them lying about because 
the nails in their sides scratched the tables. 
Nor could they be arranged side by side on a 
shelf, as we arrange books now, because of the 
projecting nails or buttons. Their weight, too, 
was a menace to safety. Petrarch almost lost 
his leg by having a volume of Cicero which he 
was reading fall on it.” 

“ I always thought Cicero would much better 
be left alone ! ” cut in Paul wickedly. “ Thank 
goodness that although I have to study Latin, 
I don’t have to do it out of a book of that size ! ” 

“You do right to make the most of your 
blessings,” his father answered, with a twinkle 
in his eye. “ Such books were, to say the least, 
awkward to handle. Most of them were kept 
chained to the lecterns or desks of the churches ; 
sometimes even to the pillars.” 

“ Chained?” 

“ Yes, indeed,” nodded Mr. Cameron. “ Books 
were too precious and rare to risk their 
being stolen, as they doubtless would have been 
had they been left about.” 

“ I should n’t think anybody would have 
wanted to carry a book big as the dictionary 
very far.” 

“But suppose you were very eager to learn 
to read and never had the chance to lay hands 
on a book ? ” 


PAUL GIVES THANKS 


57 


“ Oh, that would be different.’’ 

“That was the condition most of the per- 
sons faced who were not rich enough to pur- 
chase books, or have access to them as the schol- 
ars in the monasteries had. For at that period 
of history, you must recall, the Church was the 
custodian of learning. Priests wrote the books, 
copied them, had charge of such meager 
libraries as there were, and taught the people. 
There were neither schools nor libraries like 
ours. What wonder that the public was igno- 
rant and illiterate ? ” 

Paul was thoughtful for a moment or two. 

“Maybe schools are not such a bad thing, 
Dad,” he remarked, half in fun. “They are 
dreadfully inconvenient, to be sure, when you 
want to go and play football; still I guess we 
are better off with them than we should be with- 
out them.” 

“I reckon you’d think so, were you to try 
the experiment of being without any,” replied 
Mr. Cameron. “ By the way, how is your foot- 
ball team coming on ? I have not heard much 
about it lately.” 

“ I have n’t had time to go out with the fel- 
lows for any practice work,” confessed Paul, 
“ so I am not so well up in what they are doing 
as I ought to be. This paper of ours keeps me 
hopping. We want to make the first issue a 
bully one — so good that everybody who has n’t 
subscribed will want to, double-quick. The 


58 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

girls are working up a fine department on Red 
Cross, canning, and all that sort of thing. I ’ve 
allowed them three pages for articles and items. 
Hazel Clement is at the head of it. She’s a 
corking girl, and her mother is going to help her 
some. Mrs. Clement has been on all sorts of 
planning boards and committees, and National 
Leagues and things,” concluded Paul vaguely. 

“ It would be interesting to get Mrs. Clement 
to write you an article some time,” suggested 
Mr. Cameron. 

“ Do you suppose she would ? ” 

“ Certainly. She is a very public-spirited 
woman; moreover, she is quite as much inter- 
ested in the boys and girls of Burmingham as 
the rest of us are, I am sure.” 

“I’ve a great mind to ask her,” said Paul. 
“ If we could get one fine article a month from 
some parent who has something to say, it would 
help us tremendously. Of course, it would 
have to be on something the scholars would be 
keen on though: home gardens, or earning 
money, or citizenship, or making things.” 

“I am certain that if you explained your 
editorial policy to some of the grown-ups they 
would submit manuscripts to you,” returned 
Mr. Cameron mischievously. “ You would not 
be obliged to bind yourself to publish them if 
they were not satisfactory. Editors are al- 
ways at liberty to send contributions back with 
a slip saying that the inclosed article does not 


PAUL GIVES THANKS 


59 

meet the needs of their paper, or else that there 
is no room for it.” 

“ Gee ! Imagine my sending back an article 
that some parent had written.” 

“If you are going to be an editor that will 
be part of your business. You will have to 
learn to discriminate between the articles that 
are timely, well written, interesting, and in har- 
mony with the principles you have blocked out 
for your magazine.” 

“Do you suppose Mr. Carter has to do 
that ? ” asked Paul in an awed tone. 

“Without question.” 

“Then no wonder he looks as if he would 
freeze the blood in your veins,” ejaculated the 
boy. “ It must make him almighty severe just 
to keep reading stuff and sending back what he 
does n’t like, regardless of who wrote it.” 

“ He must keep up the standard of his paper, 
son. His subscribers pay good money for it 
and they want what they pay for. Were an 
editor to take pity on every poor soul who sent 
him an article his publication would soon be 
filled with every sort of trash. He has to 
train himself to be unprejudiced and give his 
readers only the best the market affords. The 
personal element does not enter into the mat- 
ter.” 

“ I see. I had n’t thought of that side of it,” 
Paul confessed slowly. 

His father watched him in silence. 


6o PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS ■ 


“I should not let this matter worry me,” 
observed the older man presently, “ for I doubt 
if you have so many unsolicited manuscripts 
that you will be troubled with returning a great 
number of them to their owners. And if you 
find yourself overrun with them you can always 
call in expert advice.” 

Paul brightened. 

“ I could ask somebody’s opinion, couldn’t 
I ? ” he declared. 

“ Of course. Or you could consult with your 
staff.” 

“My staff! Pooh! They wouldn’t know 
any more about it than I did,” chuckled Paul. 
“ But you would, Dad, and so would Judge Da- 
mon. I shall come straight to you if I get 
stuck.” 

“Two heads are often better than one,” re- 
sponded Mr. Cameron kindly. “Bring your 
problem home, my boy, if you find it too big for 
you. Together we ’ll thrash it out.” 

“You certainly are a trump, Dad!” cried 
Paul. “ I guess between us all we can make a 
go of the March Hare” 

“ I ’m sure of it ! ” responded his father. 


CHAPTER VI 


A GAME OF CARDS 

The first copy of the March Hare came out 
amid great excitement, — excitement that 
spread not only through the Burmingham High 
School but into the home of almost every child 
in the town. It was a good number, exception- 
ally so, even as the product of an undergraduate 
body of students who were most of them ama- 
teurs at the writing game. 

A page of the magazine was given up to each 
of the classes and contained items of interest 
to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors 
respectively; there was a page of alumnae 
notes; another page devoted to general school 
news; a section on school sports; another sec- 
tion on girls’ clubs and handicraft. The draw- 
ing master contributed a page or two on poster- 
making; and Mrs. Clement was prevailed upon 
to write a bright and practical article on the 
making of an iceless refrigerator. 

Even Mr. Carter, old newspaper warhorse 
that he was, was compelled to admit that the 
March Hare was not half so mad as it was 
painted. In fact, he grudgingly owned to one 


62 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


of his employees that the new publication was 
quite a masterpiece for the youngsters. He 
had not dreamed they could do so well. It was 
a great surprise to him. Why, the product 
was quite an eye opener ! A paper for general 
home use might not be such a bad thing in 
Burmingham. There was actually something 
in this March Hare worth while for grown-ups. 
If the following issues continued to be of the 
present order of merit, the Echo had nothing 
to blush for in fostering the scheme. As for 
that Paul Cameron, he was a boy worth watch- 
ing. He would make his mark some day. 

Coming from a man who habitually said so 
little, such praise was phenomenal and it 
spurred Paul, to whom it was repeated, to in- 
creased effort. He must keep his paper up to 
this standard, that was certain. 

With such a varied group of opinions to har- 
monize as was represented by his editorial staff, 
this was not altogether an easy task. Each 
boy stressed the thing he was specially inter- 
ested in and saw no reason for publishing any- 
thing else in the paper. Some thought more 
room should be given to athletics; some clam- 
ored that the “ highbrow stuff” be cut out; 
others were for choking off the girls’ articles on 
canning and fancy work. There were hectic 
meetings at which the youthful literary pio- 
neers squabbled, and debated, and almost came 
to blows. 


A GAME OF CARDS 


63 

But Paul Cameron was a boy of unusual tact. 
He heard each objector in turn and patiently 
smoothed away his objections until, upon a 
battlefield of argument from which scars of 
bitterness might have survived, a harmonious 
body of workers finally stood shoulder to shoul- 
der, each with enthusiasm to make the particu- 
lar part of the work for which he was respon- 
sible finer and more efficient. It was, as Paul 
declared to his colleagues, a triumph of team- 
work. 

It had never, perhaps, come to the minds of 
the boys that teamwork was a term that could 
be applied to work as well as to play. Business 
and sport seemed vitally different fields of ac- 
tivity. Yet here they were — a group of boys 
pulling together, each at the post assigned him 
— toiling for the success of the whole body. 
Was it such a different thing from football or 
baseball after all? Business managers, au- 
thors, advertising agents, were working quite 
as hard to do their part as ever they had worked 
at right or left tackle; as first baseman, or 
pitcher, or catcher. The present task simply 
demanded a different type of energy, that was 
all. The same old slogan of each for the whole 
was applicable. 

Consequently every man took up his duties 
with a pride in his especial role on the team, and 
as a result the second issue of the March Hare 
over-topped the first, and the third the second. 


64 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Young people who did not go to the High 
School at all mailed subscriptions to the busi- 
ness manager; the alumnae, now scattered in 
every direction, began to write for the publica- 
tion to be sent them ; it was good, they said, to 
get once more into touch with their Alma 
Mater. Older persons who had no children 
turned in applications for the March Hare. 
They had seen a copy of the paper and liked it. 

Into Paul’s editorial sanctum articles from 
parents who had things to say and wished to 
say them gradually found their way. Many 
of these persons had done little writing and 
would not have presumed to send their attempts 
to a magazine of a more professional character. 

Mr. Lemuel Hardy, for example, submitted 
a humorous poem on how the grapes disap- 
peared from his stone wall, — a poem so amus- 
ing and so good-natured yet withal containing 
such a pitiful little refrain of disappointment 
that the seniors at once took it upon themselves 
to see that no more of Lemuel’s grapes were 
molested. 

Mrs. Wilbur wrote on raising, transplanting, 
and caring for currant bushes. Was it really 
so hard as that to bring a good crop of fruit to 
perfection? If so, the boy was a brute who in- 
vaded Mrs. Wilbur’s garden. 1920 would see 
that there was no more of that ! 

Gladys Marvin’s father sent to the paper a 
short article on the beauty of the ordinary 


A GAME OF CARDS 65 

stones when polished and offered to polish, for 
a small sum, any specimen brought him. Many 
of the pupils of the school availed them- 
selves of this suggestion, and before a 
month was out there blossomed forth a 
host of stones of every imaginable hue set in 
rings or scarfpins of silver. Stone-hunting 
became a craze and the geological department 
gained scores of pupils in consequence. One 
heard murmurs about quartz and crystals as 
one passed through the school corridors, and 
one came upon eager scientists comparing 
rings, brooches, or pendants. 

The drawing department was beset with pu- 
pils who wished either to make designs for 
jewelry, or to look over books on ancient set- 
tings for gems. 

Louise Clausen had a necklace she had made 
herself at an arts and crafts class; it was set 
with stones she had collected — common 
pebbles that had been polished — and it was the 
envy of the entire student body. Her mother 
had let her melt up an old silver butter-dish to 
make it, she explained. 

Burmingham boys and girls went home en 
masse and begged to be allowed to melt up old 
water pitchers, mugs, or napkin rings, and fash- 
ion jewelry. 

Out of the jumble of material turned in from 
various sources one number after another of 
the March Hare appeared, each marked by a 


66 PAUL AND j THE PRINTING PRESS 

freshness of subject matter and a freedom of 
expression in such complete contrast to other 
publications that even such an august medium 
as the Echo broke over its traditions to a suffi- 
cient extent to glean an idea here and there 
from the infant prodigy and enlarge upon it. 

Once no less a personage than Mr. Arthur 
Presby Carter himself asked of Paul permis- 
sion to reprint in the columns of his paper an 
article that had particularly appealed to him 
as unique and interesting. 

“I tried,” declared Paul, when relating the 
incident to his father, “not to fall all over my- 
self when granting the permission. I told him 
that of course the thing was copyrighted, but 
that we should be glad to have him use it on the 
condition that he printed the source from which 
he had obtained it. One of his men told me 
afterward that we let him off too easy — that 
Carter was determined to have the article, and 
would have paid us a good sum for the privilege 
of republishing it. We never thought of 
charging him for it; we were proud as Punch 
to have him reprint it.” 

Mr. Cameron laughed. Paul’s frankness had 
always been one of the lad’s greatest charms. 

“Pride goeth before destruction, my son,” 
he remarked jestingly. “ However, perhaps you 
did as well not to put a price on your product. 
Mr. Carter has done quite a little to boost your 
undertaking and you can afford to grant him 


A GAME OF CARDS 67 

a favor or two. But I will say you are getting 
pretty deep into newspaper work, Paul.” 

“I do seem to be, don’t I?” smiled Paul, 
flushing boyishly. “I’m crazy over it, too. 
The more you do at it the better you like it. 
I don’t know but that when I ’m through col- 
lege, I ’d like to go in and be a reporter. I ’d 
like to write up fires and accidents and wear a 
little badge that would admit me inside the lines 
at parades and political meetings.” 

“I’m afraid you’d find there was lots to it 
besides the badge and the pleasure of stalking 
under the ropes.” 

“ I suppose so ; but I ’d like the chance to try 
it. I ’ve always envied those chaps who whis- 
pered some magic word and walked in while the 
rest of us waited outside.” 

“There you go!” cried his father. “You 
are just as bad at wanting what other people 
cannot have as ever were the early book col- 
lectors ! ” 

Paul colored. 

“ I know it,” he admitted. “ I ’m afraid we 
all enjoy having a pull and getting the best of 
other people. It is human nature.” 

“ It is human, that is true ; nevertheless, the 
impulse is a very selfish one,” said his father. 

A silence fell upon the two. They were sit- 
ting in the living room and it was almost Paul’s 
bedtime. Outside the rain was beating on the 
windows; but inside a fire crackled on the 


68 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


hearth and a crimson glow from the silken 
lampshade made cheery the room. 

“ I was telling the fellows to-day some of the 
things you told me about early bookmaking, 
Dad,” remarked Paul. “ They wanted to know 
if printing came soon after the illuminated 
books, and who invented it. I could n’t answer 
their question and as yet have had no time to 
look up the matter. We had quite a discussion 
about it. Perhaps you can save me the trouble 
of overhauling an encyclopedia.” 

“ I ’ve no business to save you from such an 
expedition,” retorted Mr. Cameron with amuse- 
ment. “ Morally, the best thing you can do is 
to look up the answer to your question yourself. 
It is good for you. However, because the sub- 
ject happens to interest me, I am going to be 
weak enough to reply to your query. Printing 
did follow the hand-illuminated and hand- 
penned manuscripts and books; but before 
printed books made their appearance, there was 
an interval when printers tried to say what they 
had to say by means of pictures. 1 You know 
how we give a child a picture book as a first 
approach to more serious reading. He is too 
undeveloped to comprehend printed words ; but 
he can understand pictures. It was just so in 
the olden days. The uneducated masses of 
people were as simple as children. Hence the 
pioneer printers’ initial efforts were turned in 
the direction of playing cards, pictures for home 


A GAME OF CARDS 69 

decoration — or images , as they were called — 
and genuine picture books, where the entire 
story was told by a series of illustrations.” 

Mr. Cameron paused in his narrative. 

“ You can readily see, if you think for a mo- 
ment,” he presently went on, “ how such an in- 
novation came about. Paper had not been in- 
vented, and vellum was not only costly but too 
limited in supply to permit many books being 
printed. Moreover, as I told you, hand in hand 
with this objection was the fact that the major- 
ity of the public had no interest in learning. 
Their intellects were immature. They were 
nothing but grown-up children, and you know 
how children like games and picture books. 
Well, those are the reasons why the next step in 
the development of printing was in the direc- 
tion of making playing cards. A coarse, 
thick, yellowish paper was beginning to 
be produced — the first crude attempt at paper- 
making — and on this material were engraved 
woodcuts of varying degrees of artistic merit. 
Some of the designs were merely ugly and 
clumsy; but some, on the other hand, were 
really exquisite examples of hand-coloring, 
unique and quaint in pattern. Thus playing 
cards came speedily into vogue. The finest 
ones were painted on tablets of ivory, or en- 
graved on thin sheets of silver. It is inter- 
esting, too, to note that the old conventional 
designs then in use have, with very little modi- 


70 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

fication, persisted up to the present day. Prob- 
ably the playing cards in common use were 
printed by the same crude method as were the 
images, and unfortunately history has failed 
to unravel just what that method was. They 
may possibly have been stenciled. All we have 
been able to learn is that cards, images (which 
were in reality religious pictures), and sten- 
ciled altar cloths — the first primitive printing 
on cloth — all appeared very early in southern 
Europe, playing cards having their origin in 
Venice, where in 1400 and even before that 
date we read of the Venetians playing cards.” 

“ Do you suppose their games were anything 
like ours ? ” questioned Paul, much interested. 

“I doubt it. Probably, for example, there 
was no bridge whist in those days,” said his 
father, with a chuckle. “ And I ’ll wager, too, 
the Venetians were quite as happy and as well 
off without it. The games of the time were 
doubtless much more simple. But whatever 
they were, they proved to be so fascinating.that 
they soon became an actual menace. Amuse- 
ments were few in those dull, monotonous days, 
when there were neither theaters, books, mov- 
ing pictures, railroads, or automobiles. One 
day was much like another. Therefore even 
the clergy welcomed a diversion and devoted so 
much time to cards that the recreation had to 
be forbidden them. Now and then some great 
religious movement would sweep over the land 


A GAME OF CARDS 


7 1 

and break up card-playing; but after a little 
respite people always returned to it with even 
greater zest than before. Nor was it a wholly 
bad thing. In the absence of schools the games 
quickened the intellect and made the com- 
mon people mentally more alert; the ignorant 
were also trained by this means to count and 
solve simple problems in arithmetic, of which 
most of them knew nothing.” 

“ That ’s a funny way to get arithmetic les- 
sons/’ said Paul. 

“Yet you can see that a knowledge of num- 
bers could be thus obtained ? ” 

“ Why, yes. Of course. But I never thought 
of it before.” 

“ Remember that the race had reverted to its 
childhood during the Dark Ages,” explained 
Mr. Cameron. “ For years all its attention had 
been given to warfare, and learning and the arts 
which had been destroyed by constant strife and 
turmoil had to.be built up again.” 

“But to have people learn arithmetic by 
means of playing cards ! ” mused Paul. 

“ Better that way than not at all. It helped 
the big result by gradually making them real- 
ize how little they knew, and making them want 
to know more, which was the necessary spur to 
learning. You will be interested also to know, 
since we are discussing playing cards, that the 
four suits are said to represent the four great 
social classes of society at that time. Hearts 


72 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

stood for the clergy; Spades (spada meaning 
a sword) for the nobility; Clubs for the peas- 
antry; and Diamonds for the more prosperous 
citizens or burghers/’ 

“ That is interesting, is n’t it ? ” 

“Yes, I think so.” 

“ And the images ? ” 

“Oh, the image-prints were small religious 
pictures done in color,” answered his father, 
“ and I fear they were often valued far more 
for their brilliant hues than for their religious 
significance. They represented all sorts of 
subjects, being taken largely from incidents in 
the lives of the saints. You know that at that 
time in many countries, especially in Italy, re- 
ligious dramas were presented — plays such as 
Everyman and Saint George and the Dragon. 
Hence such scenes were constantly before the 
people, and they were very familiar with them. 
The small image-prints served to perpetuate 
to a great extent things which they liked and 
knew; and the picture books, which gave not 
only these scenes in other form, but also repro- 
duced stories from the Bible, did the same. No 
text was necessary. The picture told the tale 
to a people who could not read, just as the 
stained-glass windows and mosaics in the 
churches did. Everywhere the feeble litera- 
ture of the period took the form either of ver- 
bal minstrelsy, drama, or pictured representa- 
tions. You will recall how most of the early 


A GAME OF CARDS 


73 

races first wrote in pictures instead of letters. 
There were hieroglyphics in Egypt ; * speaking 
stories’ in Assyria; and picture-writing in 
Turkey, China, and Japan. The picture book 
of the time was merely an attempt to put into 
simple outline, by means of woodcuts, the re- 
ligious drama, or dumb shows of the day. The 
city of Florence did much for this form of 
work, its rappresentazioni being printed as 
early as 1485. Albrecht Diirer of Germany 
was one of the later and most skilful woodcut 
artists. What the ballad was to literature the 
woodcut was to art — simple, direct, appeal- 
ing.” 

The man paused. 

“The printed story awaited several neces- 
sary factors to bring it into being. One was a 
public that desired to read — which this one did 
not; another was a means by which to print 
reading matter; a third was suitable paper on 
which to print ; and the fourth, but by no means 
the least important, a good and proper quality 
of ink. One after another these difficulties 
were done away with. If they had not been,” 
concluded Mr. Cameron, “you would not now 
have been publishing such a thing as the March 
Haver 


CHAPTER VII 


A MAD TEA PARTY 

It was amazing to see how the general in- 
terest in the March Hare increased as the 
months went by. So successful was the maga- 
zine that Paul ventured an improvement in the 
way of a patriotic cover done in three colors — 
an eagle and an American flag designed by one 
of the juniors and submitted for acceptance in 
a “ cover contest ”, the prize offered being a 
year’s subscription to the paper. After this 
innovation came the yet more pretentious and 
far-reaching novelty of the Mad Tea Party, 
a supper held in the hall of the school with 
seventy-five-cent tickets for admission. The 
mothers of the pupils contributed the food, and 
as Burmingham boasted many an expert cook 
the meal spread upon the tables was indeed a 
royal one. 

The edict went forth that no guest would be 
admitted to the festival unless arrayed in an 
“ Alice Jn Wonderland” costume, and for the 
sake of witnessing the fun, as well as of helping 
forward the fete, more than one dignified res- 
ident of the town struggled into an incongru- 



More than one dignified resident of the town struggled 
into an incongruous garment. Page 74. 



A MAD TEA PARTY 


75 


ous garment and mingled in the train of Alice, 
the White Queen, the Red Queen, the Duchess, 
Father William, and the Aged Man. Judge 
Damon and Mr. Cameron provoked a storm 
of mirth by appearing as the Walrus and 
the Carpenter, and Paul’s mother, who was 
still a young and pretty woman, came as the 
famous Queen of Hearts. As for Mr. Carter, 
although he pooh-poohed the idea and made all 
manner of jokes about the party, he astonished 
the entire community by presenting himself at 
the last moment as the Dormouse. 

Such a revel had not taken place in the vil- 
lage for years. In fact, there had never be- 
fore been any social function which brought 
high and low, rich and poor together in such 
democratic fashion. The frolic had in it a 
Mardi Gras spirit quite foreign to the wonted 
quiet and dignity of the place. 

“Why, we haven’t had such a shaking-up 
in years ! ” ejaculated the postmaster. “ Seems 
like we’ve all got better acquainted with our 
neighbors in this one evening than we ever did 
in all the rest of our lives put together. You 
don’t get far at knowing a man if you just bow 
to him every day ; but when you go making an 
ape of yourself and he goes making an ape of 
himself, each of you finds out how human the 
other one is. You’ve got something in com- 
mon to talk about.” 

And it was even as the old postmaster de- 


76 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

dared. Many a sodal barrier was broken 
down and forgotten as a result of the March 
Hare carnival. Parents ceased to remember 
their differences by talking together about their 
children, a topic that never failed to bring them 
into sympathy. Thus the movement which had 
its source in an impulse to aid the youngsters 
proved to be of benefit also to many of the eld- 
ers. Nor was this the only consequence of the 
event. 

Into the coffers of the class treasury poured 
undreamed-of wealth which made possible the 
gift of two fine pictures to the school, — one of 
Washington and one of Lincoln; a large cast 
of the Winged Victory was purchased as well, 
and placed in an empty niche in the assembly 
hall. Thus did 1920 leave behind it a memory 
illustrious and not to be forgotten. 

In the meantime Paul, absorbed in this suc- 
cessful undertaking, was so busy that he had 
scarcely leisure to eat. The editing of the pa- 
per demanded more and more time, and as new 
problems were constantly arising concerning 
its publication he did not neglect to glean from 
every possible direction all the information he 
could about printing. The mere act of prepar- 
ing copy for the press opened to his alert mind 
a multitude of inquiries. 

“ I read to-day,” he announced to his father 
one evening, “that the printing press was in- 
vented by Lawrence Coster (or Lorenz Koster) 


A MAD TEA PARTY 


77 

of Haarlem. The book said that he went on a 
picnic with his family, and while idly carving 
his name on the trunk of a beech tree he con- 
ceived the idea that he might in the same way 
make individual letters of the alphabet on 
wooden blocks, ink them over, and thus print 
words.” 

Mr. Cameron listened attentively. 

“ Such is the old legend,” he replied. “ It is 
an interesting one and many persons believe it 
to this day. History, however, fails to bear 
out the tale. Instead, as nearly as we can find 
out, what Coster is really conceded to have done 
was not to invent printing but to be the first to 
make movable type, which was one of the great- 
est factors in the perfecting of the industry. 
Holland has done honor, and rightly, to the in- 
ventor by placing a statue of him at Haarlem; 
but the real inventor of printing was probably 
John Gutenburg, a native of Strasburg, who 
made a printing press which, although not so 
elaborate as that in present use, was neverthe- 
less a properly constructed one. Simple as it 
was, the principle of it is identical with that 
used to-day.” 

“ That is curious, is n’t it ? ” observed Paul. 

“Yes. Think how long ago it was; from 
1440 to 1460 he toiled at his invention. He 
was a versatile man, being not only skilled in 
polishing precious stones but also at making 
mirrors. The making of mirrors was a new 


78 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

trade in Germany for outside the borders of 
Venice, where the monopoly had long been 
held by Italian workmen, the industry was al- 
most unknown. It is possible that Gutenburg 
may have used the presses and even the lead 
employed for molding the mirror frames to 
work out his metal type. Doubtless his knowl- 
edge of melting and pouring lead was derived 
from his mirror-making trade. We know, 
however, little of his experiments. He worked 
in secret, spending years in research and wast- 
ing other years in delays, when money to fur- 
ther his invention was not forthcoming. His 
first printing was done about 1439 or 1440, and 
from that time up to 1460 he was busy printing 
and struggling to make his work more perfect.” 

“What did he print in those early days?” 
inquired Paul. “Books?” 

“Yes. A few pages from them remain and 
are to be seen at the National Library at Paris. 
The letters used are very coarse and uneven 
and are in the Latin type employed by the monks 
in writing their manuscripts. It is almost a 
romance to picture Gutenburg shut up in the 
old ruined monastery where he worked night 
and day with one of his faithful helpers — a 
goldsmith who had long been in his employ — 
and two other tried and trusty apprentices. 
You can see how necessary it was that he have 
men whom he could rely on not to divulge his 
secret. Probably the goldsmith’s knowledge 


A MAD TEA PARTY 79 

of metals was of service to his master in the 
undertaking; as for the joiner who had pre- 
viously aided in constructing mirror frames, he 
made most of the tools. We don’t know much 
about the third workman, but we do know that 
later one of the trio died very suddenly, and the 
interruption to Gutenburg’s work caused great 
delay. Fearful that in the meantime the secret 
of the invention might leak out, or that the old 
servant’s heirs might insist on having a share 
in the discovery, Gutenburg melted up his 
forms and abandoned further labor for a time. 
This was a great pity, for by destroying what 
he had done the inventor had it all to create 
over again later on. His rash act did, how- 
ever, prove one thing which history wanted to 
know, and that was that Gutenburg used metal 
forms and not wood to make his letters.” 

“ How soon did he re-make his metal 
forms?” asked Paul eagerly. 

“ Not right away,” responded Mr. Cameron. 
“ He was deeply in debt and a good deal dis- 
couraged by the death of his efficient workman 
on whom he was very dependent. For six 
years we hear no more of him. Then he ap- 
peared at Metz where he began borrowing 
money again, just as he had done before. He 
was fortunate in securing the aid needed, and 
it is from this period on that his best printing 
was done. He now branched out into more 
ambitious tasks, producing a copy of the Latin 


8o PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


Bible in three volumes. This pretentious un- 
dertaking of course required a great many let- 
ters, and he found that to cut them by hand was 
too slow a process; moreover, the lead letters 
were very soft and wore down quickly. He 
must cast his letters in brass molds and make 
them of more durable metal. But alas, such an 
innovation was costly and his money had given 
out. Therefore, much as he dreaded to part 
with his secret, he was forced to take into part- 
nership a rich metal worker by the name of 
John Faust.” 

Mr. Cameron paused to think a moment. 

“It was thus that Gutenburg procured the 
brass for his molds; made in them letters of 
harder material; and printed his Bible. With 
the production of this masterpiece came a 
strange happening, too. You can see that by 
printing from letters cast in molds the text was 
more regular than was the handwork done by 
the priests and monks. Hence when Charles 
VII of France saw one of the new Bibles he 
was enchanted with it and eagerly bought it 
because of its uniform text. The next day he 
displayed his recently acquired treasure to the 
Archbishop with no little pride, and great was 
his astonishment when the Archbishop as- 
serted with promptness that he himself owned 
a newly purchased Bible that was quite as per- 
fect in execution. The king protested that 
such a miracle could not be — that no one could 


A MAD TEA PARTY 


8 1 


write by hand two such copies. To settle the 
dispute the Archbishop’s Bible was produced 
and placed beside the king’s, and there they 
were, identically the same. The dignitaries 
were troubled. It was not humanly possible 
to pen by hand two such books. Why, it would 
take a lifetime — more than a lifetime; nor 
could any penman write two manuscripts so 
exactly alike. To make the matter worse and 
more puzzling, other copies were discovered 
precisely like the king’s and the Archbishop’s. 
Not a line or letter varied. It was magic!” 

Paul laughed with pleasure. 

“No wonder the poor king and the stately 
archbishop were upset ! ” he said. 

“ They were very much upset indeed,” agreed 
his father. “ It was, you must recall, a super- 
stitious age. Everything that could not be 
fathomed was attributed to witchcraft. Hence 
witchcraft was the only explanation of the 
present miracle. John Faust, of whom the two 
royal persons had bought the books, must have 
sold himself to the devil. They would have the 
unlucky merchant brought, and if he could not 
satisfactorily tell how and where he had got 
the Bibles, he should be burned alive.” 

“ I suppose he went and told ! ” put in Paul 
indignantly. 

“Yes, he did. He wasn’t going to forfeit 
his life. I fancy any of us would have done 
the same, too. He showed the Archbishop his 


82 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


press and explained how the Bibles had been 
printed.” 

“ It was a pity he had to.” 

“ It was something of a pity,” answered Mr. 
Cameron. “And yet the secret must have 
come out sometime, I suppose, for subsequently 
Faust quarreled with Gutenburg and by and by 
set up a press of his own at Metz, and with 
two printing presses in the same town, and the 
workmen necessary to run them mingling with 
the populace, it was impossible to keep such an 
invention from the public. Gradually it be- 
came common property and it had become uni- 
versal when Metz was sacked in the Franco- 
Prussian War, its printing rooms destroyed, 
and the workmen scattered.” 

“Did that put an end to printing?” ques- 
tioned Paul. 

“ No. On the contrary it spread the art over 
France and Germany. By 1500 there were 
over fifty presses on the continent. In the 
meantime William Caxton, an English mer- 
chant, traveled to Holland to buy cloth, and 
there became so much interested in the books 
he saw and the tale of how they were printed 
that he purchased some type and, bringing it 
home, set up a printing press in London not far 
from Westminster Abbey. The first English 
book to be printed was dated 1474 and was 
called 'The Game of Chess.’ Then came a 
Bible which was presented to the king. From 


A MAD TEA PARTY 


83 

this time on there was practically an end to the 
handwritten books made by the monks in clois- 
ters and monasteries. Occasionally such a vol- 
ume was made for the very rich because, as I 
told you, the elegant still considered paper and 
the printed book too common and cheap for 
their use. But with the steady improvement 
of ink and paper and the awakening desire of 
the masses to read what was printed came the 
dawn of religious liberty and the birth of learn- 
ing.” 

“ It is a wonderful story ! ” cried Paul, much 
moved. 

“A book in itself, isn’t it?” said his father. 
“ It is an interesting fact, however, that Latin 
and the Latin text continued to be the language 
of the printed book for some time ; this was not 
only because of an established precedent, but 
because the Renaissance in Italy revived an in- 
terest in classic literature. But by and by 
people demanded books in their native tongue. 
They wished to read something besides the 
classics — literature that was alive and a part 
of their own era. The written novello, or 
story, began to take the place of the ballads 
which the trouveurs, or minstrels who wan- 
dered from castle to castle, had chanted. One 
was no longer dependent on such a story-teller. 
The printed novel had arrived. Its form was 
still very crude, but it was nevertheless a story 
and a broader field for entertainment than was 


84 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

provided by the threadbare lives of the saints. 
Science, too, was making remarkable progress 
and the public was alert to read of Bacon and 
Galileo, as well as of Luther and Shakespeare. 
Had printing come earlier it would have been to 
a passive, indifferent populace; now it ap- 
peared in answer to the craving of a people 
thirsty to read of travel, invention, poetry; to 
consume the Tales of King Arthur, Sir John 
Mandeville’s Travels, Sidney’s ‘Arcadia’, 
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Elizabeth- 
ans reflected in England the rebirth of litera- 
ture and learning which was sweeping all Eu- 
rope at the time. Printing was not the herald, 
nor yet the servant, of this wonderful age; but 
was rather its companion, going hand in hand 
with it and making all the wealth of thought 
that it had to give available to us, as well as to 
those of its own day.” 

“ Long live Gutenburg! ” exclaimed Paul. 

“Yes, we owe him a great deal,” agreed Mr. 
Cameron. “ But do not become confused and 
attribute everything to him. He did invent 
type molds for casting type and thereby 
brought printing to the point of a practical art. 
He did not invent engraving on wood, as many 
enthusiasts acclaim; nor did he invent impres- 
sions of relief surfaces. He was not, more- 
over, the first to print on paper, for the makers 
of playing cards and image-prints had done 
that before him. There had also been roughly 


A MAD TEA PARTY 85 

printed books before his day and printing 
presses, too. There had even been movable 
type. But Gutenburg was the first to combine 
these ideas so that they could be used for prac- 
tical purposes. In other words, he was the first 
practical typographer, not the first printer. 
Upon the foundation that other men had 
built in, he reared a permanent, useful art 
without which there could not have been either 
enlightenment or education.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 

“Ever since last night, Dad/’ remarked 
Paul, the next evening at dinner, “ I have been 
wondering how the old printers got rid of the 
Latin text, lettering, or whatever you call it, 
and got down to printing in English like ours.” 

“You’re starting on a long story,” replied 
Mr. Cameron, glancing up from his plate. 
“ The development of our modern type requires 
a volume in itself. Many scholars and many 
craftsmen contributed to that glorious result. 
It did not come all in a minute. Gutenburg’s 
uneven Latin lettering was a far cry from our 
uniform, clear, well-designed variety of print. 
In the first place, as I told you before, good ink 
and good paper were necessary to beautiful 
text, and these Gutenburg did not have. Grad- 
ually, however, as a result of repeated experi- 
ments, paper and ink that were of practical 
value were manufactured. China had long 
been successful in printing because of the fine 
texture of her paper. Italy, the home of the 
arts, caught up Gutenburg’s invention and 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 87 

brought not only lettering but paper-making to 
a marvelous degree of perfection.” 

“Italy and China always seem to be doing 
things,” laughed Paul. 

“ Both nations were inventive and original,” 
answered Mr. Cameron. “ The difference be- 
tween them was that while China locked all her 
discoveries up within her own walled cities, 
Italy shared her knowledge with the rest of the 
world and made it and herself immortal.” 

“ The Italians were a great people, were n’t 
they?” 

“ They were true lovers of all that was best 
and most beautiful,” answered his father 
gravely. “Even their aristocracy felt it no 
disgrace to toil to perfect a fine art. To make 
that which was excellent more excellent still 
was the aim of rich and poor. Nobles, artisans, 
barefooted friars worked together towards that 
common goal. It was an Italian prince, Nich- 
olas V, a man who afterward became Pope, 
who founded the Vatican Library and collected 
five thousand books, at a time, you must remem- 
ber, when a book was a rare and almost price- 
less treasure. To him we owe the preservation 
of many a valuable old manuscript that might 
otherwise have been destroyed. Five thou- 
sand volumes was in those days a vast number 
to get together.” 

“Our public libraries would not think so 
now,” smiled Paul. 


88 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


“ No, because at present books are so easily 
within reach that we scarcely appreciate them. 
We certainly read only a very small proportion 
of them.” 

“ I know I don’t read many,” said Paul so- 
berly. 

“You will read more as you grow older, 
son,” returned his father kindly. “But most 
of us are intellectually lazy; even grown-up 
persons devote a good part of their short lives 
to reading things that profit them nothing.” 

“ Things like the March Hare , for example,” 
suggested Paul facetiously. 

“ Many a worse thing than the March Hare, 
I ’m afraid,” his father responded. “ We seem 
to think we have unlimited time before us, and 
that there is no hurry about reading the good 
things we mean to read before we die; so we 
waste our precious moments on every sort of 
trash — cheap novels, worthless magazines, 
newspaper gossip, and before we know it, our 
lives are gone. I overlook your being so fool- 
ish; but for me it is inexcusable. The Italians 
of the Renaissance did not give themselves over 
to such folly. They put their hearts seriously 
into building up their age and generation. 
Lorenzo de Medici dragged from the corners of 
Europe and Asia some two hundred Greek and 
Latin manuscripts. Other Florentines, Vene- 
tians, Romans collected private libraries. 
Princes of the land turned their wealth not to 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 89 

their own idle pleasure but to financing Guten- 
burg’s invention and establishing printing 
presses which the culture and brain of the 
country controlled. There was a printing 
press at the Vatican itself, and scholars who 
were paid large salaries met in consultation 
concerning the literature printed. The best 
artists contributed their skill to the undertak- 
ing. Indeed, it was a disagreement about some 
theological work that Martin Luther had come 
from Germany to help with that sent him back 
home in a temper. And not only was the mat- 
ter printed carefully scrutinized but also every 
detail of its production was thought out — the 
size of the page, the size of the type, the 
width of the margins, the quality of the 
paper, the variety of type to be used. What 
wonder that under such conditions printing was 
rapidly transformed from a trade to an art. 
When we think of the exquisite books made in 
this far-away day, we sigh at our present out- 
put.” 

Mr. Cameron’s face clouded, then bright- 
ened. 

“ Nevertheless when all is said and done, 
books are not for the person of wealth alone. 
The work of the Aldi of Italy, the Elzevirs of 
Leyden, the Estiennes of Paris, although of 
finest quality, was much too expensive for uni- 
versal use. For it is the subject matter inside 
the book which, when all is said and done, is 


90 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

the thing we are after, and which we are eager 
to spread abroad; and never in any age has 
every type of literature been so cheap and ac- 
cessible, or the average of culture so high as 
now. If a person is ignorant to-day it is his 
own fault. Nothing stands between him and 
the stars but his own laziness and indiffer- 
ence.” 

“Time, my dear Henry,” interrupted Mrs. 
Cameron. “Do not leave out the element of 
time. Remember that the farther away we get 
from the beginning of learning, the greater 
accumulation there is for us to master. Like 
a mammoth snowball, each century has rolled 
up its treasure until such a mass has come down 
to us that it is practically impossible for us to 
possess ourselves of it. Sometimes when I 
think of all there is to know, I am depressed.” 

“And me, too, Mater,” echoed Paul. “It 
seems hopeless.” 

“ But there are short cuts,” argued Mr. Cam- 
eron. “ No one expects any of us to read all 
the books of the past. The years have sifted 
the wheat from the chaff, and by a process of 
elimination we have found out pretty well by 
this time what the great books are. By classi- 
fying our subjects we can easily trace the 
growth and development of any of the really 
significant movements of the world; we can 
follow the path of the sciences ; study the prog- 
ress of the drama from its infancy to the pres- 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 91 

ent moment; trace the growth of the novel; 
note the perfecting of the poetic form. His- 
tory, philosophy, the thought of all the ages is 
ours. That is what I mean when I say there is 
no excuse for persons of our era being unin- 
formed. We are reaping the results of many 
unfoldings and can see things with a degree of 
completeness that our ancestors could not ; they 
looked at life’s problems from the bottom of the 
hill and got only a partial view; we are seeing 
them from the top, and understanding — or we 
should be understanding — more fully, their in- 
terrelation.” 

“ I suppose,” mused Paul thoughtfully, “ that 
those who come after us will see even farther 
than we.” 

“They ought to, and I believe they will,” 
his father answered. “Nothing walks with 
aimless feet , in my opinion. It is all part of a 
gigantic, divine plan. The small beginnings 
of the past have been the seed of to-day’s har- 
vest. We thank Gutenburg for our books. 
We thank such men as Nicholas V and many 
another of his ilk for the Vatican Library, the 
British Museum, the numberless foreign mu- 
seums ; we owe a debt to our nation for our own 
Congressional Library, to say nothing of the 
smaller ones that, through the public spirit of 
generous citizens, have opened their doors to 
our people and done so much to educate and de- 
mocratize our country.” 


92 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

There was a moment of silence. 

“ And quite aside from the thousands of vol- 
umes written in our own language, we have ac- 
cess to the literature of other nations both in 
translation and in their mother tongue. Re- 
member that after printing had got well under 
way, type in other languages — Arabic, Greek, 
Hebrew — had to be developed in order that 
the literature of other languages might aug- 
ment our own.” 

“ I don’t think I took that into account,” re- 
marked Paul. 

“Of course,” continued Mr. Cameron less 
seriously, “ not every person of the olden time 
was alert for learning. Human nature was 
much the same then as now. 

“ I ’m afraid even in the midst of all this 
thirst for knowledge there were those who 
cared far more for the outside of a book than 
for the inside,” he continued humorously. 
“ Books were bound in brocade, in richly orna- 
mented leather embossed with gilt; some had 
covers of gold or silver studded with gems, 
while others were adorned with carved ivory 
or enamel. As time went on and the re- 
ligious manuscripts written, illuminated, and 
bound by the monks gave place to the more 
elaborate productions of a printing age, eccle- 
siasts were not skilful enough to do the illus- 
trating demanded, and a guild of bookbinders 
sprang up. Into the hands of artists outside 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 93 

the cloister were put the more dainty and 
worldly pictures required by secular text. 
Then followed a period when scholars who 
owned books were no longer forced to loan them 
to students to copy for their own use, as had 
been the case in the past. Books became less 
expensive and were accessible to everybody. 
Slowly they were got into more practical form 
— were made smaller and less bulky; not only 
outside but inside they were improved. 4 The 
Lives of Saints’ and Fox’s 4 Book of Mar- 
tyrs ’ gave way first to the tales of Merlin and 
King Arthur in various versions, stories of 
Charlemagne, and romances of similar char- 
acter. Copyrights being unknown, there was 
no law to protect a book, and hence all the ad- 
ventures of the hero of any one tongue were 
passed on to the favorite hero of another na- 
tionality; as a result French, Italian, Spanish, 
and Celtic literature teem with heroes who per- 
form marvellous deeds of identical character.” 

Paul was amused. 

“ Amadis of France, the popular idol of the 
French people, worked the same marvels as 
King Arthur did, only under another name. 
Every nation borrowed (or rather stole) from 
every other. It was not considered reprehen- 
sible to do so. Shakespeare worked over the 
Italian novelle of Boccaccio, weaving them into 
his great English dramas, and nobody censured 
him. It was this craving for romance that 


94 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

overcame the delight in mere display and roused 
interest not alone in the binding of a book but 
in its contents. True collectors and book-fan- 
ciers still strove with one another to obtain 
choice, beautiful, and fabulously expensive vol- 
umes. But for the most part the book came 
back to its original purpose and took its place 
as a mouthpiece of literature.” 

“ Do you mean that books became cheap ? ” 
asked Paul. 

“Not what we should consider cheap — that 
is, not for a long time. You see, the thing that 
makes a book cheap is not alone the material 
put into it, or the price for which it can be ob- 
tained of the author; it is largely the size of 
the edition printed that reduces the expense of 
production. It is practically as much work to 
print fifty copies of a volume as several hun- 
dred. The labor of setting the type is the 
same. The circle of readers was not large 
enough in olden times to justify a volume being 
manufactured in large numbers ; nor were there 
any methods for advertising and distributing 
books broadcast as there are now.” 

“Oh,” exclaimed Paul, “I see. Of course 
there were n't.” 

“Advertising and distribution play a very 
important part in our present-day book trade,” 
his father went on. “To-day publishers fre- 
quently announce and advertise the book of a 
well-known author before the manuscript is 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 95 

completed, sometimes even before it is written 
at all. They get a scenario or resume of the 
story, and take orders for the book as if it were 
really already finished. Or with the manu- 
script in their hands they will often begin 
‘traveling it’ long before it is printed. The 
reason for this is that in a large country like 
ours it takes a long time for salesmen to get 
about and secure orders from the various 
selling houses of our large cities. It means 
spreading a book from coast to coast. While 
the publisher is getting the book through the 
press, correcting proof, having illustrations and 
the colored jacket designed and printed, per- 
haps having posters made for advertising, his 
salesmen are taking orders for it by means of 
a condensation of the story and a dummy cover 
similar to the one which later will be put on the 
volume. Then, when the books are ready, they 
are shipped east and west, north and south, 
but are not released for sale until a given date, 
when all the stores begin selling them simulta- 
neously. You can see that this is the only fair 
method, for it would be impossible, for example, 
for San Francisco to advertise a book as new, 
if it had been already selling in Boston for a 
month or so. All the selling houses must have 
the same chance. So a date of publication is 
usually set and announced. Frequently, how- 
ever, long before that date an edition, or several 
editions of a popular book will be sold out. 


96 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Booksellers will be so certain that they can dis- 
pose of a great number of volumes that they 
will place large orders ahead in order to be sure 
of securing the books they desire.” 

“ Can they always tell ahead what people will 
want ? ” inquired Paul. 

“ No, not always. Sometimes the public will 
be caught by a story and it will become popular 
not only to the amazement of the bookseller, 
but to the surprise of both publisher and author 
as well. One cannot always prophesy what 
readers will like, especially if an author is new. 
It is a great gamble. But usually an author 
whose work is known and liked can safely be 
calculated upon to sell.” 

“Is it much work for a publisher to get a 
book ready for the market after he once gets 
the manuscript from the author ? ” asked Paul. 

“ To produce a well-printed, artistic book re- 
quires infinite care and pains,” replied Mr. 
Cameron. “Of course a book can be rushed 
through. Such a thing is possible. But un- 
der ordinary conditions it is several months, 
sometimes a year, before the book is ready for 
sale. First a galley proof of the manuscript 
is made; by this I mean the subject matter is 
printed on a long strip of paper about the width 
of a page but several times as long. Then this 
proof, which is made chiefly to be sure the type 
is correctly set, is examined, and the errors in 
it are rectified. After this it is again corrected 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 9 7 

and is cut up into lengths suitable for a page. 
Following this the page proof is printed, care 
being taken that the last word at the bottom of 
one page joins on to the top word of the next. 
It is very easy to omit a word and thus mar the 
sense. It is also a rule of most publishing 
houses that the top line of each page shall be 
a full line, and in consequence it is often a 
Chinese puzzle to make the text conform to the 
rule. Readers often have to insert a line or 
take one out to meet this necessity, and some- 
times an author’s text is garbled as a result. 
No writer likes having words or whole sen- 
tences introduced or omitted; and you can’t 
quite blame him, either, for he has to stand be- 
hind the book and receive not only what praise 
it may win but also the blame showered on it 
by both the public and the reviewers. Natu- 
rally the book — not alone the story but the style 
and choice of words — is assumed to be his. 
If he is a careful worker he has probably 
weighed every word that has gone into the 
phrasing. He therefore does not relish hav- 
ing his style meddled with, even for such a 
technicality as the filling out of a short line.” 

“Is it really better to heed this printer’s 
edict ? ” laughed Paul. 

“ I think without question the book makes a 
better appearance if the rule is heeded,” de- 
clared Mr. Cameron. “A printer does and 
should take pride in the looks of his page. The 


98 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

beauty of a book is quite an element in its pro- 
duction. After the type has been set up and 
corrected, and the proof paged, the next consid- 
eration is the size of the paper to be used, the 
quality, the texture. The width of the mar- 
gins, the clearness or brilliancy of the text, the 
appearance and flexibility of the binding all 
have to do with the artistic result which is, or 
should be, the aim of every publisher. When 
all these details have been decided upon there 
is yet another important factor in book-produc- 
ing — the item of expense. Books being no 
longer the property of the few, they must be 
within the reach of the many, and the book- 
manufacturer’s business is to make them so. 
It is precisely because we have such a large 
reading public that America has attained her 
high intellectual average. Not that we are a 
cultured nation. By no means. What I mean 
is that our public school system offers educa- 
tion so freely, and even compels it so drasti- 
cally, that there is a much smaller proportion 
of illiterate persons here than in most lands. 
Our illiterates are largely foreigners who have 
not been in our country long enough to become 
educated. Most of them have immigrated 
from places where they had no educational 
advantages, and some of them are, alas, now 
too old to learn. The great part of our native- 
born citizens can read and write, and vast 
numbers of them have a much broader educa- 


THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING 99 

tion than that. It is by means of the wide dis- 
tribution of learning and enlightenment that 
we hope to banish ignorance and superstition 
and spread patriotism and democracy. So you 
see books are a giant element in our national 
plan, .and the writing and publishing of what 
is worthy and helpful is a service to the country. 
To do all this the publisher has no easy puzzle 
to solve — to produce what is good literature 
artistically, and at a price where he shall have 
his legitimate profit, and yet give to the public 
something within the range of its purse.” 

“I guess I’d rather stick to my job on the 
March Hare!” exclaimed Paul. 

“ I imagine it is quite big enough for you at 
present,” smiled his father. “ Between the 
public, and the printer, and the bookbinder the 
publisher is torn in many directions. And then 
there is the author, who, as I say, does not like 
his text tampered with. Firms differ greatly 
about this. Some publishers feel perfectly jus- 
tified in going ahead and remodeling a writer’s 
work to suit themselves; others regard an 
author’s manuscript as a sacred possession and 
never change so much as a punctuation mark 
on it without asking permission. They may 
suggest changes but they will not make them. 
It is a point of honor with them not to do so.” 

Mr. Cameron smoked reflectively. 

“ Authors, however,” he went on, “are not 
as badly off as they were before they had the 


100 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


copyright. Their stories can no longer be 
stolen with impunity as in the past. They are 
better paid, too. Many an olden-time author 
received very scant remuneration for his labor ; 
sometimes he received none at all. Many had 
to beg the patronage of the rich in order to get 
their works printed; contracts were unfair 
and publishers unprincipled. The unfortu- 
nate author was the prey of vultures who 
cheated him at every turn. Many died in ex- 
treme poverty, only to become famous when it 
was too late. In our day the law has revolu- 
tionized most of these injustices, and although 
there are still unprincipled publishers as there 
are always scamps in every calling, the best 
class houses deal honorably with their writers, 
transforming the relation between author and 
publisher into one of friendliness and confi- 
dence rather than one of animosity and dis- 
trust.” 

“ I suppose it is policy for a publisher to be 
fair.” 

“It is more than policy; it is honesty,” re- 
turned Mr. Cameron. “ It does, however, pay, 
for without the writer the publisher could not 
exist, and no writer is going to put his work in 
the hands of a person he cannot trust. It is a 
short-sighted man who kills the goose that lays 
the golden egg ! ” 


CHAPTER IX 


PAUL EMBARKS ON ANOTHER VENTURE 

“Do you know, Dad, the March Hare is 
rapidly turning into an elephant/’ announced 
Paul to his father one morning not long after 
the conversation of the previous chapter. “I 
am having more and more copy to prepare for 
Mr. Carter all the time, and am doing every bit 
of it by hand. It takes hours to get it ready. 
I ’m beginning to think I ought to have a type- 
writer. How much does one cost? Have 
you any idea ? ” 

“ Typewriters come at all prices,” his father 
answered. “ What I should advise you to get 
would be one of the small, light-weight ma- 
chines. They are far less expensive than the 
others and do excellent work.” 

“ About how much would one cost ? ” 

“ Fifty or sixty dollars.” 

Paul gave a low whistle. 

“ That’s all very well, sir,” he laughed. 
“ But where am I to get the fifty or sixty bones 
to pay for it?” 

“ I don’t know, my boy. That ’s up to you. 


102 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


Doesn’t your business manager provide you 
with a typewriter ? ” 

“Not on your life!” replied Paul. “Much 
as ever I can wring enough money out of him 
to cover my incidental expenses. No, the pa- 
per is n’t fitting up offices for its hard-working 
staff. If I get a typewriter it must be my own 
venture.” 

“You would always find such a machine use- 
ful,” returned his father slowly. “It would 
not be money thrown away.” 

Paul glanced down thoughtfully. 

“I’ve half a mind to save up and get one,” 
he said suddenly. “ I could put my war-saving 
stamps into it,” he added. 

“ So you could.” , 

“ I have nearly twenty-five dollars’ worth of 
them already.” 

“Oh, that’s fine! I had no idea you had 
been so thrifty.” Mr. Cameron looked pleased. 

“We fellows have been racing each other up 
at school to see who could get his book filled 
first. I ’m afraid it was not all thrift,” Paul ex- 
plained, meeting his father’s-eyes with honesty. 

“ The result, however, seems to be the same, 
whatever the motive,” smiled the man. 
“Twenty-five dollars would be a splendid start 
toward a typewriter. You might possibly run 
across a second-hand machine that had not 
been much used and so get it for less than the 
regular price. I think, considering the cause 


ANOTHER VENTURE 103 

is such a worthy one, I might donate ten dollars 
to it.” 

“ Really! Oh, I say, Dad, that would be 
grand. I ’ll pick you right up on your offer.” 

“ You may, son. I shan’t pay over my ten 
dollars, though, until you have the rest of the 
money.” 

“ That ’s all straight; only don’t forget about 
it.” 

"You needn’t worry. I don’t expect you 
will give me the chance to forget even if I 
wanted to,” replied his father teasingly. 

“ You bet I won’t. I ’m going right to work 
to get the rest of my cash as fast as I can,” re- 
sponded Paul. “ And I ’m going to look up 
machines, too.” 

“ I can give you the names of one or two good 
makes,” his father suggested. 

“ I wish you would, Dad. You think one of 
the small machines you spoke of would be good 
enough ? ” 

“ Certainly,” assented Mr. Cameron. “ Many 
persons who do a good deal of work use the 
little machines from preference. They take 
up less room and are lighter and more compact 
to carry about. In these days almost nobody 
is without a typewriter, especially persons who 
write to any considerable extent. Those who 
write for publication find a typewriter practi- 
cally imperative. Editors will not fuss to de- 
cipher hand-penned copy. The time it takes 


104 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

and the strain on the eyes are too great. A 
professional writer must now turn in his manu- 
script neatly typed and in good form if he ex- 
pects to have it meet with any attention. The 
old, blotted, finely written and much marked- 
up article is a thing of the past. Typewriters 
are so cheap in these days and so simply con- 
structed that there is no excuse for people not 
owning and running them. ,, 

“ I wonder who thought out the typewriter, 
Dad,” mused Paul. 

“ That is a much mooted question, my boy,” 
Mr. Cameron answered. “ There is an old 
British record of a patent for some such de- 
vice dated 1714, but the specifications regard- 
ing it are very vague and unsatisfactory ; there 
also was an American patent taken out by 
William A. Burt as early as 1829. Fire, how- 
ever, destroyed this paper and we have no pos- 
itive data concerning it. Since then there have 
been over two thousand different patents on 
the typewriter registered at the Government 
Office at Washington, — so many of them that 
any person applying for a patent on a new vari- 
ety must have a great deal of courage.” 

“ I should say so ! ” 

“ Generally speaking, all typewriters resolve 
themselves into two styles of keyboard ma- 
chine: in one the type bars strike the paper 
when the keys are depressed; in the other the 
type is arranged around a wheel which rotates 


ANOTHER VENTURE 


105 

in answer to the depressing of a keyboard let- 
ter, and prints the corresponding type which is 
thereby brought opposite the printing point. 
Either variety is good. It is a matter of pref- 
erence. Possibly the type-bar kind is the more 
common. There is, too, a difference in the 
manner of inking the type. One machine 
inks the letters from an inked ribbon that is 
drawn along by the action of the machine be- 
tween the type face and the paper ; the type of 
the other machine is inked from an ink pad that 
strikes the type before it is brought in contact 
with the paper. Sometimes this ribbon or 
ink pad is black ; sometimes blue, green, red, or 
purple. Sometimes, too, a ribbon is so con- 
structed that it inks in two colors, which is fre- 
quently a convenience for business purposes. 
Text, for example, can be done in black and 
the numerals — prices perhaps — put in in red.” 

“ I see. I should think that would be fine,” 
said Paul. “ Now tell me one other thing: are 
the letters arranged in the same order on all 
typewriters ? ” 

“You mean the keyboards?” 

“Yes, I guess that is what I mean,” replied 
Paul. 

“Keyboards sometimes differ in arrange- 
ment,” Mr. Cameron explained. “Some key- 
boards have a key for each letter, and others 
one key for several characters. It is, how- 
ever, desirable that machines should differ as 


io6 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


little in arrangement as possible, as typists 
learn a universal method of letter-placing and 
are consequently annoyed to find the letters in 
an unfamiliar location on a new machine." 

“ I can see that would upset them dread- 
fully, M answered Paul. “ Of course they could 
not go so fast." 

“Not only that, but they would make fre- 
quent mistakes," continued his father. “The 
most expert typists seldom look at the keys, you 
know. They memorize the position of the let- 
ters and then operate the machine by the touch 
system, or by feeling. You have often seen a 
person play the piano in the same fashion. It 
is a great advantage for a stenographer to be 
able to do this, for he can keep his eyes on his 
copy and not constantly change his eye-focus 
by glancing first at the manuscript and then at 
the machine. He can also give his entire at- 
tention to taking dictation if he so desires. 
The touch system is a great timesaver; it en- 
ables any one to make twice the speed." 

“ And the bell warns them that they are ap- 
proaching the end of a line, even if they don't 
see that they are," Paul added. 

“Precisely!" 

“It is a great scheme, isn't it — a type- 
writer?" declared the boy. 

Mr. Cameron nodded. 

“ What would n't the old monks have given 
for one ? " went on Paul mischievously. “ Think 


ANOTHER VENTURE 


107 

of the years of work that would have saved 
them.” 

“ Yes, that is true. But if we had no fine old 
illuminated manuscripts, we would have lost 
much that is beautiful and interesting. There 
is no question, though, that typewriters accord 
with our generation much more harmoniously 
than do painfully penned manuscripts. In our 
day the problem is to turn out the most work in 
the shortest time, and the typewriter certainly 
does that for us. It is a very ingenious device 
— a marvel until one sees a modern printing 
press; then the typewriter seems a child's toy, 
a very elementary thing indeed.” 

“ I 'd like to see a big press sometime,” Paul 
observed. “ I have been trying to get my 
nerve together to ask Mr. Carter for a permit 
to visit the Echo printing rooms.” 

“The Echo — humph!” laughed his father 
in derision. “Why, my boy, much as we es- 
teem the Echo here in Burmingham, it is after 
all only a small local newspaper and very in- 
significant when compared with one of the big 
city dailies. You should visit the press rooms 
of a really large paper if you want to see some- 
thing worth seeing. The Boston Post , for ex- 
ample, has the largest single printing press in 
the world. It was built in 1906 by the Hoe 
Company of New York and is guaranteed to 
print, count, fold, and stack into piles over 
700,000 eight-page papers an hour.” 


io8 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ Great Scott, Dad!” 

“ It is tremendous, is n’t it ? ” 

“ I ’d like to see it.” 

“ Sometime you shall. I think such a trip 
could be arranged,” his father replied. “In 
the meantime I fancy you will have all you can 
do to earn the money for your typewriter, pur- 
chase it, and learn to manipulate it.” 

“ I guess I shall ; that ’s right,” agreed Paul. 
“ How am I going to get together the rest of 
that money! You haven’t any suggestions, 
have you, sir ? ” 

“Not unless you want to do Thompson’s 
work while he takes his trip West. He is going 
out to Indiana to see his mother and will be 
away a month or so ; in the meantime I have got 
to hire another man to do the chores about the 
place. The lawn must be cut; the leaves raked 
up; the driveway kept trim and in order; and 
the hedge clipped. If you want to take the job 
I will pay you for it.” 

“ I ’d have to do the work Saturdays, I sup- 
pose.” 

“ That would n’t hurt you, would it ? ” 

Paul thought a moment. 

“N — o.” 

“Undoubtedly it would interfere with your 
school games, the football and baseball,” said 
his father. “ Maybe a typewriter is n’t worth 
that amount of sacrifice.” 

“Yes, it is.” 


ANOTHER VENTURE 


109 

“ Think you want to make a try at Thomp- 
son's job?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Then I won't hire in another man ; only re- 
member I shall expect you to stick to the bar- 
gain. I can’t have you throwing up the place 
in a week or two.” 

“ I shan't do that.” 

“ And I can't have my work done haphazard, 
either,” continued Mr. Cameron. “ It must be 
done well and regularly.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ You want me to give you a trial ? ” 

“Yes, Dad.” 

“Do you want to do the whole job — the 
brasses indoors too?” 

“ Yes, I may as well take on the whole thing 
since I am out for money,” laughed Paul. 

“That's right. You have the proper spirit 
— the spirit that buys typewriters,” answered 
his father. “I don't believe the exercise will 
hurt you, and at the end of it you will have 
something more to show than a dislocated 
shoulder, maybe, or a cracked cranium.” 

“Do you think I can earn what money I 
shall need to make up the rest of my fifty dol- 
lars ? ” inquired Paul anxiously. “ Can I do it 
in a month ? ” 

“ A month of work will give you the rest of 
your fifty, son; have no fears. It will give 
you, too, all the work you will want for one 


no PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


while/’ answered Mr. Cameron. “ Unless I 
am greatly mistaken, you will be quite ready to 
resign your post to Thompson when he comes 
back.” 

“ Perhaps I shall,” Paul replied, “but if you 
are repenting your bargain and are trying to 
scare me off, Dad, it is too late. You have 
hired me and I mean to stick it out.” 

“Go ahead, youngster, and good luck to 
you ! ” chuckled his father. 


CHAPTER X 


A DISASTER 

It was after Paul had toiled early and late 
and put aside enough money for the new type- 
writer, and even a little more, that the first 
calamity befell the March Hare. 

When the acounts were found to be short, 
it was unbelievable. Melville Carter, the busi- 
ness manager, who handled all the funds, was 
the soul of honesty as well as an excellent math- 
ematician. His books were the pride of the 
editorial staff. Therefore when he was con- 
fronted with the hundred-dollar deficit, he 
could scarcely speak for amazement. There 
must be some mistake, he murmured over and 
over. He had kept the accounts very carefully, 
and not an expenditure had been made that had 
not been talked over first with the board and 
promptly recorded. There never had been a 
large surplus in the bank after the monthly 
bills were paid, but there was always a small 
margin for emergencies. The treasury had 
never before gone stone dry. But there it was ! 
Not only was there no money in the bank, but 


1 12 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

the March Hare was about fifty dollars in the 
hole. 

Paul and Melville went over and over the ac- 
counts, vainly searching for the error. But 
there was no error. The columns seemed to 
add up quite correctly. So, however, did the 
deposit slips from the bank. And the tragedy 
was that the two failed to agree. The bank 
had a hundred dollars less to the credit of the 
March Hare than the books said it should have. 

In the meantime, at the bottom of Paul's 
pocket, lay a bill of fifty dollars for publishing 
expenses. What was to be done? The bill 
must be paid. It would never do to let the 
March Hare run behindhand. To begin to 
run into debt was an unsafe and demoralizing 
policy. 

Paul's father had urged this advice upon him 
from the first. The March Hare must pay its 
bills as it went along; then its editors would 
know where they stood. And so each month 
the boys had plotted out their expenses and kept 
rigidly within the amount of cash they had in 
reserve. They had never failed once to have 
sufficient money to meet their bills. In fact, 
their parents had enthusiastically applauded 
their foresight and business ability. 

And now, suddenly and unaccountably, here 
they were confronted by an empty treasury. 
What was to be done ? 

Of course the bill was not large. Fifty dol- 


A DISASTER 


ii 3 

lars was not a tremendous sum. But when you 
had not the fifty, and no way of getting it, the 
amount seemed enormous. 

Then there was the balking enigma of it. 
How had it happened ? 

“If we only knew what we had done with 
that hundred, it would not be so bad,” groaned 
Melville. “ It makes me furious not to be able 
to solve the puzzle.” 

“ Me, too ! ” Paul replied gravely. 

And worse than all was the humiliation of 
finding they were not such clever business men 
as they had thought themselves to be. That 
was the crowning blow ! 

“ A hundred dollars — think of it ! ” said Paul. 
“ If it had been twenty-five ! But a cool hun- 
dred, Mel!” 

He broke off speechlessly. 

“ We can’t be that amount short,” protested 
Melville for the twentieth time. “We simply 
can’t be. I have not paid one bill that the man- 
aging board has not first O.K.-ed. You know 
how carefully we have estimated our expenses 
each month. We have kept a nest-egg in the 
bank, too, all the time, in case we did get stuck. 

I can’t understand it. We haven’t branched 
out into any wild schemes. Of course, after 
the party we did make those presents to the 
school ; but we looked over the ground and made 
sure that we could afford to do so.” 

“We certainly thought we could,” returned 


1 14 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Paul glumly. “ Probably, though, we were too 
generous. Wouldn't people laugh if they 
knew the mess we are in now ! ” 

“ Well, they are not going to know it from 
me,” growled Melville. “ If I were to tell my 
father we were in debt he would say it was 
about what he expected. I wouldn't tell him 
for a farm down East. And how the fresh- 
men would hoot ! ” 

“ I don’t think my father would kid us,” Paul 
said slowly, “but I know he would be awfully 
disappointed that we had made a business 
foozle.” 

“ I, for one, say we don’t tell anybody,” Mel- 
ville burst out. “ I 've some pride and I draw 
the line at having every Tom, Dick, and Harry 
shouting ‘ I told you so ! ' at me. What do you 
say, Paul, that we keep this thing to ourselves ? 
If we have made a bull of it and got ourselves 
into a hole, let 's get out of it somehow without 
the whole world knowing it.” 

“But how?” 

“ I don't know,” Melville returned. “ All I 
know is I 'm not for telling anybody.” 

“ But this bill, Melville? What is to become 
of that?” 

“ We must pay it.” 

“ We?” 

“You and I.” 

The room was very still ; then Melville spoke 
again. 


A DISASTER 


US 

“ Have n’t you any ready money, Paul ? ” 

“ Y — e — s.” . 

“ Have you enough so that we could halve a 
hundred — pay the fifty-dollar deficit and put 
fifty dollars in the bank?” 

“ You mean you ’d pay half of it if I would? ” 
“Yep” 

“l — see.” 

“ Could you manage it — fifty dollars ?” 

“ Yes. Could you, Mel ? ” 

“Well, I haven’t the fifty; but I have a Lib- 
erty Bond that I could sell and get the money.” 

“ That seems a shame,” objected Paul. 

“Oh, I don’t care. I’m game. Anything 
rather than having the whole school twit me of 
messing the accounts.” 

“ I don’t care about being joshed, either,” de- 
clared Paul. “Still — ” 

“ Something ’s fussing you. What is it ? ” 

“ Well, you see, Mel, I ’ve been doing extra 
work at home in order to earn enough money 
for a typewriter. I’ve just got it saved up. 
It ’ll have to go into this, now.” 

“ Darned hard luck, old man ! Don’t do it if 
you don’t want to. Maybe I can — ” 

“ No, you can’t ! I would n’t think of having 
you pay the whole hundred, even if you had the 
money right in your hand. This snarl is as 
much mine as yours. We probably haven’t 
planned right. We’ve overlooked something 
and come out short.” 


n6 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


“We might let the bill run until another 
month, I suppose/’ Melville presently sug- 
gested. 

Paul started up. 

“No. We mustn’t do that on any account. 
We might be worse off another month. I say 
we clear the thing right up and start fair. If 
you will turn in your fifty, I will,” declared he, 
with spirit 

“ Bully for you ! You sure are a sport, Kip.” 

“ I don’t see anything else to be done.” 

There was nothing else. Melville’s “Baby 
Bond” was converted into cash; Paul’s type- 
writer sacrificed; the fifty-dollar bill was paid; 
and the other fifty was put into the bank. 

The boys kept their own council and if the 
March Hare sensed that its reputation had 
trembled on the brink of ruin it gave no sign. 
Gayly it went on its way. 

People began to comment on the paper as be- 
ing “snappy” and “up to date”; they called it 
“breezy” and “wholesome.” Now and then 
an appreciative note from a distant graduate 
would make glad the editorial sanctum. 
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the magazine be- 
came more and more the organ of speech for 
the community. Persons who had never ven- 
tured into print — who, perhaps, never would 
have ventured — summoned up courage to send 
to this more modest paper articles that were 
received with welcome. Being first efforts and 


A DISASTER 


117 

words that their authors had long desired to 
speak they were stamped with a freshness and 
spontaneity that was delightful ; if at times the 
form was faulty it was more than compensated 
for by the subject matter. Furthermore, many 
of the contributions were of excellent quality. 

Then there gradually came a day when the 
timid March Hare had more desirable material 
than it had room to print. A part of this was 
political, for the school classes in current 
events had aroused in the students a keen in- 
terest in international affairs. As a conse- 
quence good political articles had been eagerly 
sought for. Other contributions were of scien- 
tific nature and appeared from time to time in 
the columns devoted to such matter. The 
great mass of material sent in, however, was 
unclassified and found its way into the depart- 
ment labeled: Town Suggestions; or into the 
pages known as: Our Fathers and Mothers . 
Neither of these departments had originally 
been featured in the March Hare plan; they 
came as a natural outgrowth of the paper. 
Parents had things which they wanted to say 
to one another or to their boys and girls. 
There was many a problem to be threshed out, 
threshed out more intimately than it could have 
been in a larger and more formal paper. The 
questions debated never failed to interest the 
elder part of BurminghanTs population and 
frequently they appealed to the youngsters as 


n8 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


well. In fact, it was not long before these de- 
partments were merged into a sort of forum 
where an earnest and vigorous interchange of 
opinions ’twixt young and old took place. 

And all the while that the sprightly March 
Hare was thus leaping on to success, Mr. 
Arthur Presby Carter sat quietly in his office 
and watched the antics of this youthful upstart. 
He was surprised, very much surprised ; indeed 
he had, perhaps, never been more surprised in 
all his life. He had long thought he knew a 
good deal about the make-up of a paper, — what 
would interest and what would not ; in fact, he 
considered himself an expert in that sphere. 
He had put years of study into the matter. 
Even now he would not have been willing to 
confess that a seventeen-year-old boy had 
taught him anything. That would have been 
quite beneath his dignity. But privately he 
could not deny that this schoolboy adventurer 
had opened his eyes to a number of things he 
had never considered before. 

The Echo was a conservative, old-fashioned 
paper that had followed tradition rather than 
the lead of an alert, progressive public. From 
a pinnacle of confident superiority it had spoken 
to the people, telling them what they should 
think, rather than giving ear to their groping 
and clamoring desire for a hearing. The Echo 
never discussed questions with its readers. 
Its editor had never deigned to do so, so why 


A DISASTER 


119 

should his publication? To bicker, argue, and 
debate would have been entirely at odds with 
its standards. People did not need to state 
what opinions they held ; they merely needed to 
be told what opinions they should hold. Thus 
thought Mr. Arthur Presby Carter, and thus 
had his policy been immortalized in his paper. 

But now, to his amazement and chagrin, a 
publication had been born that was undermin- 
ing his prestige and putting to naught his creeds 
and theories. This absurd March Hare was 
actually becoming the authorized mouthpiece 
of the town. It would have been blind not to 
recognize the fact. Fools had indeed rushed in 
where angels feared to tread, as Mr. Carter 
himself had jeeringly asserted they sometimes 
did, and as a result there had come into being 
this unique monthly whose subscription list was 
constantly swelling. 

The publisher shrugged his shoulders. He 
was a shrewd business man. He had, he con- 
fessed to himself, been trapped into printing 
this amateur thing, and once trapped he had 
been game enough to live up to his contract ; but 
he had always viewed the new magazine with 
a patronizing scorn. For a press of the Echo's 
reputation to be printing a silly High School 
publication had never ceased to be an absurdity 
in his eyes. He had regarded the first issues 
with derision. Then slowly his disdain had 
melted into astonishment, respect, admiration. 


120 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


There evidently was a spirit in Burmingham of 
which he had never suspected the existence, — 
an intelligence, an open-mindedness, a search- 
ing after truth. Hitherto the subscribers to 
any paper had been represented in his mind by 
a long list of names in purple ink, or else, by 
their money equivalent. Now, suddenly, these 
names became persons, voices, opinions. No 
one could take up the March Hare and not be 
conscious of a throbbing of hearts. It sounded 
through every page — that beating of hearts — 
fathers, mothers, girls, boys speaking with 
simple sincerity of the things they held dearest 
in their lives. 

Why, it was a miracle, this living flesh and 
blood that glowed so warmly and sympatheti- 
cally through the dead mediums of paper and 
ink! 

How had the enchantment been wrought ? the 
magnate asked himself. To be sure, he had 
never tried through the columns of the Echo 
to get into actual touch with those into whose 
homes his paper traveled. He had never cared 
who they were, what they thought, or how they 
lived. The problems puzzling their brains 
were nothing to him. But he now owned with 
characteristic honesty that had he cared to ob- 
tain from them this free expression of opinion 
and learn the reactions their minds were con- 
stantly reflecting, he would have been at a loss 
as to how to proceed. 


A DISASTER 


121 


Yet here, through the instrumentality of a 
mere boy, a boy the age of his own son, the elu- 
sive result had been accomplished ! 

Where lay the magic? 

The March Hare was not a paper that could 
speak with authority on any subject, nor was 
it a magazine of distinct literary merit. On 
the contrary it naively confessed that it was 
young and did not know. It explained with 
frankness that it had not the wisdom to speak; 
that instead it merely echoed the thought of 
its readers. 

It was this “ echoing idea ” that was new to 
Mr. Arthur Presby Carter. He had always 
spoken. To listen to the opinions of others he 
had considered tiresome. Very few persons 
had opinions that were worth listening to. 

Nevertheless, after dissecting the reasons for 
the March Hare's popularity, and lopping off 
the minor elements of its uniqueness and wide 
appeal, the elder man faced the real psychologi- 
cal secret of the junior paper’s success : it lis- 
tened and did not talk; it was a dialogue instead 
of a monologue, — an exact reversal of his pol- 
icy. 

Moreover, this dialogue, contrary to his pre- 
vious beliefs, presented amazingly interesting 
opinions. Here were the past and the present 
generation arguing on the policy of the new 
America, — what its government, its statesman- 
ship, its ideals should be. The Past was rich 


1 22 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


in advice, experience; the Present in hope, 
faith, courage. Youth, the citizen of to-mor- 
row, had a thousand theories for righting the 
nation's faults ; and some of these theories were 
not wholly visionary. 

Did his paper, Mr. Carter wondered, call out 
in the hearts and minds of those who read it a 
similar response of patriotism and high ideals ? 
Did it reach the great human best that lies deep 
in every individual? Alas, he feared it did 
not. It was too autocratic. It aimed not to 
stimulate but to silence discussion and it prob- 
ably did so, descending upon its audience with a 
confident finality that admitted of no argument. 

The March Hare , on the other hand, was 
apologetically modest. Nobody quailed before 
it. Even the least of the intellectuals feared 
not to lift up his voice in its presence and de- 
mand a hearing. 

Such a novel and rare product was worth per- 
petuating. From a money standpoint alone the 
paper might become in time a paying invest- 
ment. It was, of course, a bit crude at present ; 
but the kernel was there ; so, too, was the long 
list of subscribers, — an asset to which he was 
not blind. 

Suppose he was to buy out this schoolboy 
enterprise at the end of the year and take it in- 
to his own hands ? Might it not be nursed into 
a publication that would have a lasting place in 
the community and become a property of value ? 


A DISASTER 


123 

He would improve it — that would go with- 
out saying — touch it up and polish it; doubt- 
less he would think best to revise some of its 
departments; and — well, he would probably 
change its name and its cover design. He 
could not continue to perpetuate such an ab- 
surdity as that title. Perhaps he would christen 
it the Burmingham Monthly . 

The notion of purchasing the amateur prod- 
uct appealed to his sense of humor. The more 
he thought of it, the stronger became his desire 
to own the paper. Strange he had never before 
considered publishing a monthly magazine. 
Yes, he would get out the few remaining is- 
sues of the March Hare under its present name 
and then he would buy out the whole thing for 
a small sum and take it over. The boys would 
undoubtedly be glad enough to sell it, flattered 
to have the chance, no doubt. A check that 
would provide the editorial staff with some 
hockey sticks or tennis shoes would without 
question satisfy them. What use would they 
have for a paper after they graduated? 

Thus reasoned Mr. Arthur Presby Carter to 
himself in the solitude and silence of his edi- 
torial sanctum. And after he had disposed of 
the matter to his entire satisfaction, he took up 
a letter from his desk and decided with the same 
deliberation to purchase also certain oil prop- 
erties in Pennsylvania. For Mr. Arthur 
Presby Carter was a man of broad financial in- 


124 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

terests and a large bank account. The Echo 
was only one of his many business enterprises, 
and buying March Hares or oil wells was all 
one to him, a means of adding more dollars to 
his accumulating hoard. 


CHAPTER XI 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 

While Mr. Carter sat in his editorial office 
and thus reflected on his many business ven- 
tures Paul Cameron was also sitting in his ed- 
itorial domain thinking intently. 

The hundred-dollar deficit in the school 
treasury bothered him more than he was will- 
ing to admit. It was, of course, quite possible 
for him to repair the error — for he was con- 
vinced an error in the March Hare's bookkeep- 
ing had caused the shortage. A bill of a hun- 
dred dollars must have been paid and not re- 
corded. Melville Carter had never had actual 
experience in keeping accounts, therefore was 
it so surprising that he had inadvertently made 
a mistake ? Perhaps he was not so capable of 
handling money and keeping it straight as the 
class had thought when they had elected him 
to his post of business manager. Paying bills 
and rigorously noting down every expenditure 
was no easy task. It was a thankless job, any- 
way — the least interesting of any of the posi- 
tions on the paper, and one that entailed more 
work than most. To kick at Mel would be 


126 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


rank ingratitude. It was not likely he had 
made a mess of things wittingly. Therefore 
the only alternative, since neither Mel's pride 
nor his own would permit them to confess to 
the muddle, was to pay the outstanding bill and 
slip the rest of the cash as quietly as possible 
into the bank. 

How strange it was that the sum lacking was 
just an even hundred dollars! Yet after all, 
was it so strange? It was so easy to make a 
mistake of one figure in adding and subtract- 
ing columns. There did not, it was true, seem 
to be any mistake on the books; but of course 
there was a mistake somewhere. It was not at 
all likely that the bank had made the error. 
Banks never made mistakes. Well, there was 
no use crying over spilled milk. The success 
of the March Hare had been so phenomenal 
hitherto that one must put up with a strata of 
ill luck. 

He hated to give up buying his typewriter, 
after all the hard work he had done to earn it. 
He supposed he could sell his Liberty Bond as 
Melville was planning to do and use that money 
instead of the sum he had laid by. But he did 
not just know how to go to work to convert a 
Liberty Bond into cash. It was an easy enough 
matter to buy a bond ; but where did you go to 
sell one ? How many business questions there 
were that a boy of seventeen was unable to an- 
swer ! If he were to ask his father how to sell 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 127 

the bond, it might arouse suspicion, to ask any- 
body else might do so too. People would won- 
der why he, Paul Cameron, was selling a Lib- 
erty Bond he had bought only a short time be- 
fore. Burmingham was a gossipy little town. 
Its good news traveled fast but so also did its 
bad news. Any item of interest, no matter how 
small, was rapidly spread from one end of the 
village to the other. Therefore Paul could not 
risk even making inquiries, let alone selling his 
property to any one in the place. 

Yet he could not but laugh at the irony of the 
signs that confronted him wherever he went: 
Buy Bonds! Invest! There were selling 
booths at the bank, the library, the town hall. 
At every street corner you came upon them. 
But none of these agencies were purchasing 
bonds themselves. Nowhere did it say: Sell 
Bonds! These patriots were not at their posts 
to add to their troubles — not they ! 

Once it occurred to Paul to ask the cashier 
at the bank what people did with Liberty Bonds 
which they wanted to dispose of ; but on second 
thought he realized that Mr. Stacy was an in- 
timate friend of his father’s and might mention 
the incident. Therefore he at length dis- 
missed the possibility of selling his bond and 
thereby meeting his share of the March Hare 
deficit. 

No, he must use his typewriter money. 
There was no escape. He chanced to be at the 


128 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


Echo offices that day with copy for the next is- 
sue of his paper and was still rebelliously wa- 
vering over the loss of his typewriter when the 
door of Mr. Carter's private room opened and 
the great man himself appeared, ushering out 
a visitor. Glancing about on his return from 
the elevator his eye fell on Paul. 

“Ah, Paul, good afternoon," he nodded. 
“ Come into my office a moment. I want to 
speak to you." 

Paul followed timidly. It was seldom that 
his business brought him into personal touch 
with Mr. Carter, toward whom he still main- 
tained no small degree of awe; usually the af- 
fairs relative to the school paper were trans- 
acted either through the business manager of 
the Echo or with one of his assistants. 

But to-day Mr. Carter was suddenly all ami- 
ability. He escorted Paul into his sanctum, 
and after closing the door, tipped back in the 
leather chair before his desk and in leisurely 
fashion drew out a cigar. 

“ How is your paper coming on, Paul ? " he 
asked, as he blew a cloud of smoke into the room 
and surveyed the boy through its blueness. 

“ Very well, Mr. Carter." 

“ Austin, our manager, tells me your circu- 
lation is increasing." 

“Yes, sir. It's gone up steadily from the 
first." 

“Humph!" mused Mr. Carter. “Funny 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 129 

thing, is n’t it ? It was quite a clever move of 
yours to set the parents to writing. Every- 
body likes to see himself in print ; we ’re a vain 
lot of creatures. Of course, the minute you 
published their articles they bought them. 
Could not resist it ! ” 

The lad laughed. Although he did not 
wholly agree with the editor it did not seem 
necessary to tell him so. 

“I guess you’ve found your enterprise a 
good deal of work,” went on Carter. 

“ Well, yes. It has taken more time than I 
expected,” Paul admitted. 

“ You ’ll be glad to get rid of it when you 
graduate in June.” 

The man studied the boy furtively. 

“Yes, I shall. It has been great fun; but it 
has been a good deal of care.” 

“ You ’re going to Harvard, I hear.” 

“Yes, sir. Harvard was Dad’s college, and 
it ’s going to be mine.” 

“ I have n’t much use for colleges,” growled 
Mr. Carter. “They turn out nothing but a 
grist of extravagant snobs. I never went to 
college myself and I have contrived to pull 
along and make my pile, thanks to nobody. 
I’ve a big half mind to have Melville do the 
same. But his mother wants him to go, and 
I suppose I shall have to give in and let him. 
It will be interesting to see what he gets out of 
it” 


130 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Paul did not answer. He did not just know 
what reply to make. 

“ So you ’re set on college.” 

“ Yes, sir, lam.” 

“ What ’s your idea ? ” 

“To know something.” 

The man’s thin lips curled into a smile. 

“And you expect to acquire that result at 
Harvard?” 

“ I hope so.” 

“Well, you may,” remarked Mr. Carter, with 
a sceptical shrug of his shoulders, “ but I doubt 
it. You will probably fritter away your time 
and your father’s money in. boat-racing, foot- 
ball, and fraternity dramatics; that is what it 
usually amounts to.” 

“ It has got to amount to more than that with 
me,” Paul declared soberly. 

“Why?” 

“Because Dad is not rich, and hasn’t the 
money to throw away.” 

A silence fell upon the room. 

“ I should think that under those circum- 
stances you would do much better to cut out a 
frilly education and go to work after you finish 
your high school course,” observed the mag- 
nate deliberately. “ Suppose I were to make 
you a good business offer ? Suppose I were to 
take over that school paper of yours at the end 
of June — ” 

“What!” 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 131 

“ Wait a moment. Then suppose I took you 
in here at a good salary and let you keep on with 
this March Hare job? Not, of course, in pre- 
cisely its present form but along the same ’gen- 
eral lines. We could make a paying proposi- 
tion out of that paper, I am sure of it. It 
would need a good deal of improving,” contin- 
ued the great man in a pompous, patronizing 
tone, “ but there is an idea there that could be 
developed into something worth while, unless 
I am very much mistaken.” 

“B — u — t — ” stammered Paul and then 
stopped helplessly. 

“The thing is not worth much as it now 
stands,” went on Mr. Carter, puffing rings of 
smoke airily toward the ceiling, “but in time 
we could remodel it into a publication of real 
merit — make a winner of it.” 

Paul did not speak. 

“How do you like newspaper work?” in- 
quired Mr. Carter, shifting the subject adroitly. 

“Very much — the little I’ve seen of it.” 

“ If you were to come in here you might work 
up to a place on the Echo” 

The boy started. 

“You’re a bright chap and I like you. I’d 
see you had a chance if you made good.” 

“You’re very kind, sir, but — ” 

“ Well, out with it ! What ’s the matter ? ” 

“ It would knock my college career all — ” 

“Faugh! College career! Why, here is a 


132 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

career worth ten of it — the chance of a life- 
time. I wouldn’t offer it to every boy. In 
fact, I wouldn’t offer it to any other boy I 
know of — not to my own son.” 

“ It ’s very good of you, Mr. Carter.” 

“ See here, youngster,” said Mr. Carter, lean- 
ing toward Paul impressively, “ when you are 
as old as I am you will learn that you ’ve got to 
take opportunities when they come to you. 
The same one never comes twice. You don’t 
want to turn down a thing of this sort until 
you’ve considered it from all sides. Think 
what it would mean to remodel that paper of 
yours with plenty of money behind you and put 
it on a footing with other professional maga- 
zines. That would be a feather in your cap ! I 
could buy the March Hare in — ” 

"I’m not sure you could, Mr. Carter,” re- 
plied Paul slowly. “ The staff might not want 
to sell it.” 

“What!” 

The tone was incredulous with surprise. 

“ I don’t know that we fellows would feel that 
we had the moral right to sell out,” explained 
Paul quietly. “You see, although we have 
built up the paper it belongs to a certain extent 
to the school.” 

“Nonsense!” cut in Mr. Carter impatiently. 
“That’s absurd! The publication was your 
idea, was n’t it ? ” 

“Yes, at the beginning it was; but — ” 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 133 

“They wouldn't have had it but for you, 
would they ? " 

“I don't know; perhaps not," confessed the 
boy reluctantly. 

“It was your project," insisted Carter. 

“Yes." 

“ Then nobody has any right to claim it." 

“Maybe not the right to really claim it. 
But all of us boys have slaved together to make 
it a success. It is as much their work as mine." 

“What do they intend to do with it?" 

“Pass it on to the school, I suppose. We 
haven't talked it over, though. We haven’t 
got that far yet." 

“Well, all I can say is that if you handed it 
over to the school free of charge you would be 
darn stupid. Why not make some money out 
of it ? Offer to sell it to the school if you think 
you must ; but don't give it away." 

Paul shook his head dubiously. 

“The school couldn't buy it. They've 
nothing to buy it with." 

“ Then you have a perfect right to sell it to 
somebody else," put in Mr. Carter quickly. 
“In the world of business, people cannot ex- 
pect to get something for nothing. What you 
can't pay for you can’t have. If the school has 
no money — " he broke off with a significant 
gesture. “Now if I offered you fellows a 
lump sum in June — a sum you could divide 
amongst you as you saw fit — wouldn't that 


134 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

be a perfectly fair and legitimate business 
deal?” 

“ I — I — ” faltered Paul. 

“ Would n’t it?” Mr. Carter persisted. 

“ I suppose so,” murmured Paul unwillingly. 
“ Only, you see, I still feel that the paper should 
go to the school. I think the other fellows 
would feel so too.” 

Nettled Mr. Carter rose and strode irritably 
across the room and back. Then he came to a 
standstill before Paul’s chair and looked down 
with steely eyes into the lad’s troubled face. 

“ But you admitted just now that you and the 
staff had made the paper what it is, didn’t 
you ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then it belongs to you, does n’t it ? ” 

“In a certain sense; yes.” 

“Now see here, Paul,” began Mr. Carter. 
“You are the editor-in-chief of that magazine, 
and the head of the bunch. What you say 
would go with them — or it ought to. You 
could make them think about what you pleased. 
Why don’t you put it up to your staff to sell the 
paper to me and pocket the proceeds ? ” 

“Because I don’t think — ” 

“I guess you could manage to think as I 
wanted you to if it were worth your while, 
couldn’t you?” smiled the great man insinuat- 
ingly. 

“I don’t quite — ” 


TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 135 

“ Turn it over in your mind. It is a straight 
business proposition. You land your March 
Hare here in my office as my property at the 
end of June, and I will make it worth your 
while. Understand ? ” The great man eyed 
the lad keenly. 

“Not fully, Urn afraid.” 

“But you would before I got through with 
you,” chuckled Mr. Carter, rising. 

Paul rose too. He was very glad to have the 
interview finished. 

“We’ll talk no more about this matter to- 
day,” declared the editor lightly. “ You think 
over carefully what I ’ve said and come and see 
me again sometime.” 

“ All right, sir.” 

Paul moved awkwardly toward the door. 
He wanted to add some word to conceal how 
worried, angry, and upset he really was, but 
he could think of nothing to say. It was ig- 
nominious to pass out of the room as if he were 
a whipped puppy. Men always terminated 
their business talks pleasantly, no matter how 
vexed they were with one another underneath. 

He must show Mr. Carter that he also could 
close an interview in true man’s fashion. His 
hand was on the knob of the door now ; but he 
turned. 

“ Oh, by the way, Mr. Carter,” he said with 
an off-hand air, “ do you know where a person 
goes to sell a Liberty Bond ? ” 


136 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

It was the only topic of conversation he could 
think of. 

“ Sell one ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” The boy blushed. 

“ In need of cash?” 

“I — yes; I’m thinking of getting rid of a 
fifty-dollar bond I have.” 

“ That’s foolish. You’d much better keep 
it.” 

Paul shook his head with sudden resolve. 

“I think if I can get rid of it without too 
much red tape, I ’ll let it go.” 

“ Want the money badly, eh? ” 

“ Y — e — s.” 

“ Your father know you are selling out?” 

“No, sir.” 

The boy began to regret that he had spoken. 

“ Oh — ho ! So you ’re in a scrape, eh ? ” 

“No, it’s not a scrape,” protested Paul. 
“At least, not what you’d commonly call a 
scrape. It is just that — ” 

“ That you do not want to tell your father.” 

“ Not now.” 

Mr. Carter winked. 

“ I see,” he said. 

He went to a drawer in his desk and inno- 
cently Paul watched his movements, wondering 
what he was going to do. Give him an address 
where he could sell his bond, no doubt. 

Instead Mr. Carter slipped a crisp bill from 
a roll in the drawer and held it toward him. 



44 But I can’t take your money, Mr. Carter,*’ gasped 

Paul. Page 137. 



TEMPTATION ASSAILS PAUL 137 

“I’ll advance you fifty dollars on your 
bond,” he said, “and no questions asked. I 
was a boy once myself.” 

“ But I can’t take your money, Mr. Carter,” 
gasped Paul, trying to hand the crackling bit 
of paper back again. 

“Pooh, pooh! Nonsense!” the man ejacu- 
lated, waving him off. “ Call it a loan if you 
prefer. A loan with a bond for security is 
quite an ordinary business matter. It is only 
a trifle, anyway.” 

“But — ” 

“Run along! I have no more time to give 
to you. I have a directors’ meeting at four. 
Ah, here’s Mr. Dalton now. How are you, 
Dalton. Run along, youngster. Take the 
cash with you and welcome.” Then he added 
in an undertone: “Just use your influence with 
your chums up at school, and we will say no 
more about this little loan. If you land the 
March Hare in my hands the deal will be worth 
the fifty to me. Good night.” 


CHAPTER XII 


TEMPORIZING 

It was not until Paul was on his way home 
that the full significance of Mr. Carter’s action 
dawned upon him. He, Paul Cameron, had 
been bribed! He had taken from the magnate 
of Burmingham a sum of money in return for 
which he had tacitly pledged himself to use his 
influence to carry through a business deal which 
he held to be wrong, and with which he had no 
sympathy. To be sure, he had not done this 
monstrous deed voluntarily. Mr. Carter had 
thrust it upon him. He had been put in a 
difficult position and had failed to act. It was 
his passivity for which he now blamed himself. 
He should have repudiated the whole thing, 
hurled the odious money upon Carter’s desk — 
since the man refused to take it back — and 
fled from the place. The fact that Mr. Carter 
had given him no opportunity to discuss the 
matter or refuse his offer was no excuse. He 
should have made the opportunity himself. 

The only apology he could offer for his con- 
duct was that he was completely stunned by 
the happenings of the afternoon. The drama 


TEMPORIZING 


139 


had moved too swiftly for him. Until it was 
over, he had not sensed its trend. Was he 
really so much to blame ? 

Nevertheless, twist and excuse the fact as 
he would, the truth remained that there he was 
with the hateful fifty-dollar bill in his posses- 
sion. 

It was appalling, terrible ! He, who had al- 
ways prided himself on his honesty! He had 
not had the least notion of precipitating such a 
crisis when he had inquired about selling his 
Liberty Bond. The query had been a purely 
innocent one. He had to say something, and 
the chance of getting information from Mr. 
Carter had seemed too opportune to let slip. 
But as he reviewed the episode of the past half 
hour, he saw that Mr. Carter was perfectly 
justified in misunderstanding him and thinking 
that he laid himself open to the very situation 
that had come about. 

Paul fingered the bill nervously. Fifty dol- 
lars ! If he chose to use it to meet the deficit 
on the school paper he could now take his own 
savings for the new typewriter he wanted so 
much. Who would be the wiser? Had not 
Mr. Carter given him the money? It was his, 
his own property. 

To forfeit that typewriter had been a wrench. 
He had not dared to admit to himself how bit- 
ter had been his disappointment at giving it 
up. It would be a long time before he could 


i 4 o PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS ] 

ever again earn enough money to buy a ma- 
chine. And he needed it so much — needed it 
right away. Suppose he did buy a typewriter 
next year ? A dozen typewriters would never 
mean to him what one would mean just now. 
Until he had made up his mind to do without 
it, it had seemed an indispensable possession, 
and now the necessity of having it came back 
again with redoubled force. He reflected on 
the machine’s myriad advantages. Wasn’t it 
almost imperative that he buy one? Wasn’t 
such a thing for the welfare of the school? 
Surely it would not be a selfish action if he ex- 
pended his money for the good of others. 

Suppose he were to urge the fellows to sell 
out the March Hare to Carter ? After all, they 
were their own masters. They need not do so 
unless they chose. He had no authority over 
them. To advise was a very different thing 
from commanding. No matter what measure 
he advocated, his opinion was neither final nor 
mandatory. He was no autocrat or imperator 
before whose decree his subjects trembled. It 
would be absurd to credit himself with such 
power. 

And, anyway, the editorial board had never 
promised to bequeath the March Hare to the 
school. If parents, teachers, pupils, the gen- 
eral public had assumed this, they had had no 
right to do so. The paper, as Mr. Carter had 
said, was the property of those who had created 


TEMPORIZING 141 

it. Were they not free to dispose of it as they 
chose ? 

Yet all the while he argued thus, Paul knew, 
deep down in his soul, that although there had 
been no written or verbal agreement, the com- 
munity considered the publication a permanent 
school property. 

Should it be sold to Mr. Carter and continue 
to be published, what chances for success would 
another such paper have? It would be useless 
for 1921 to attempt to duplicate the March 
Hare. People were familiar with it; they 
knew and liked it. In all probability a great 
portion of its regular subscribers would con- 
tinue to take the magazine, regardless of who 
published it. That it had ceased to be a school 
enterprise would not influence them. They 
liked it for what it was, not as a philanthropy. 
Probably, too, with Mr. Carter behind it, the 
March Hare would branch out and be made 
much more attractive. If the Echo press took 
up the publication of such a monthly, it would, 
of course, be with the intention of sweeping all 
other competitors out of the field. It would 
sweep them out, too. Mr. Carter would see to 
that. By fair means or foul he had always 
accomplished that which he willed to do. 

Another school paper running in opposition 
to such a power ? Why, it would not have the 
ghost of a chance to live ! Besides, who would 
print it? No, if Mr. Carter took over the 


142 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

March Hare , the school must say good-by to 
further literary attempts. 

But after all, was that his lookout? What 
concern of his would it be what became of 
Burmingham and 1921. They could struggle 
on as best they might. That was what his class 
had had to do. 

Paul walked home very slowly, turning Mr. 
Carter’s bill in his hand as he went. How del- 
icate its workmanship! How wonderful its 
dainty tracery! He had never before noticed 
the accuracy with which a bill was fashioned. 

“Who prints United States money, Dad?” 
he asked quite irrelevantly of his father, when 
next he saw him. 

“Our United States greenbacks? Those 
are engraved and printed, my son, at the 
United States Bureau of Engraving and Print- 
ing at Washington. They are made from very 
fine and exquisitely prepared plates and printed 
on a special sort of paper. This paper has 
numberless little silk threads running through 
it which not only toughen it and prevent it 
from tearing but also make it almost impos- 
sible to duplicate. A counterfeiter would have 
to go to a deal of trouble to imitate such 
material.” 

Paul nodded. He had noticed the blue 
threads in his fifty-dollar bill. In fact, there 
was not much about it that he had not noticed 
while twisting and turning it in his fingers. 


TEMPORIZING 


143 

“Yes,” continued his father, “our paper 
money and government notes are fine ex- 
amples of accurate and perfect workmanship. 
I suppose, as they pass through our hands, we 
seldom consider the labor that goes into mak- 
ing them. From the time the designer begins 
his work to the moment the plates are made, 
tried out, and accepted, many, many hours of 
toil are consumed. You know, of course, that 
our government runs a very extensive printing 
plant where it uses tons of paper every year. 
There is no end to the government printing. 
The Congressional Records must be printed 
and filed, as must also thousands of reports 
from various boards and committees. Then 
there is stationery for official use ; official docu- 
ments of all sorts; catalogues; cards for gov- 
ernment business.” 

“ I never thought of that.” 

“Yes, indeed. Uncle Sam runs quite a job- 
bing office, all the details of which must be 
carefully systematized, too. Great care is 
taken that the spelling abbreviations and such 
details shall be uniform on all government doc- 
uments. You can readily see how necessary 
it is that they should be. Therefore the gov- 
ernment issues a manual for the use of its em- 
ployees, a list of punctuation and capitalization 
marks and rules, as well as printers’ marks 
which shall serve as a standard and must be 
conformed to for all government purposes.” 


144 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“That is interesting, isn’t it?” murmured 
Paul. 

“You can readily understand that in prepar- 
ing government reports and such things for the 
press a uniform abbreviation for the States, 
for example, must be used. It would be out of 
the question to have one person abbreviating 
Alabama one way and another person another. 
It would not only result in a slipshod lot of 
documents but the variation might mislead 
those who read it. In all such documents every 
detail must be the same. Moreover, often em- 
ployees are far from being expert in such mat- 
ters and a book to which they can refer is a 
great help to them. In addition, it settles all 
disputes arising between the clerks who make 
up the reports and the printers who print them ; 
and it saves the time and labor of correcting 
errors.” 

“I see.” 

“Not only does the government printing 
office do a vast amount of printing for the use 
of the Washington authorities but it does a 
great deal of work for the country at large. 
Think, for instance, of the care and accuracy 
that goes into making out the United States 
census.” 

“ Not only care but paper and ink,” laughed 
Paul. 

“ All such tabulated documents consume 
quantities of paper,” answered his father. 


TEMPORIZING 


145 

“Directories, telephone books, circulars, and 
advertising matter in general demand tons and 
tons of paper every year, and the printing of 
them provides employment for hundreds of 
printers. As time goes on, more and more 
business is annually transacted by mail. The 
country is so tremendous and the expense of 
sending out salesmen to cover it so great that 
merchants now do much of their selling from 
mail-order catalogues. Many of these books 
are very attractive, too. A careful reproduc- 
tion of the object for sale is made and the pho- 
tograph sent broadcast to speak for itself. Jew- 
elry firms issue tempting lists of their wares; 
china and glass dealers try to secure buyers 
by offering alluring pages of pictures, many of 
them in color ; dry goods houses send out pho- 
tographs of suits, hats, and clothing of all sorts. 
You have seen scores of such books and know 
how they are indexed and priced. In fact, 
there are commercial firms whose mail-order 
department is a business in itself, catalogues 
entirely supplanting salesmen. It is a much 
cheaper, wider-reaching means of selling, and 
often the results are quite as good as are the 
more old-fashioned methods. Now that artistic 
cuts can be reproduced with comparatively 
little expense this means of advertising is be- 
coming more and more popular. Many char- 
ities annually make their appeal for funds by 
leaflet or card; stocks are offered to customers ; 


146 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

your patronage to theaters, entertainments, and 
hotels is thus solicited. The combination of 
low postage rates and wide mail distribution 
is accountable for an almost overwhelming 
amount of printed business being transacted. 
Then, too, the mail is a great time-saver, or 
should be, an advantage to be considered in our 
busy, work-a-day world.” 

“ But people don’t read half the stuff they 
get through the mails,” said Paul. 

“ No, of course not. If they did, they would 
do little else,” smiled his father. “ Neverthe- 
less, they glance at it and now and then, as their 
eye travels over it, an item on the page catches 
their fancy. Any artistic advertisement will 
usually command attention; so will the receipt 
of some trifling article that is pretty or novel. 
Besides, it is chiefly the rushed city person who 
tosses the advertisement away unread. Those 
with more leisure, country people, perhaps, who 
receive little mail, usually read every word of 
the printed matter that reaches them. They do 
not have so many diversions as we do, and this 
printed stuff entertains them and keeps them in 
touch with the cities. Therefore they gener- 
ally go over what is sent them quite carefully. 
Frequently they are miles from large shops and 
are forced to do much of their purchasing by 
mail, so such catalogues are a great conven- 
ience to them.” 

“ I can see that,” Paul admitted. 


TEMPORIZING 


147 

“ Yes, indeed. Catalogues to those living in 
sparsely settled districts are a profound bless- 
ing. I should not be surprised to see the 
paper, ink, and printing business one of our 
largest industries. We cannot do without 
any of these commodities. Have you thought, 
for example, of the amount of material and 
labor that goes into producing the millions of 
thick telephone directories annually circulated 
among the subscribers? All these have to be 
printed somewhere.” 

“ It must be an awful piece of work to get 
them out, Dad.” 

“ It is. They must be printed absolutely cor- 
rectly too, for an error will cause both the ex- 
change and the subscriber no end of trouble. 
So it is with residence directories and many 
similar lists. If you consider, you can readily 
see that as a nation we consume an unbelievable 
amount of paper and ink in a year. That is 
why the shortage of these materials during the 
war caused such universal inconvenience. 
And not only do we demand a great deal of pa- 
per, and ink, and printer’s skill in every depart- 
ment of our business, but being a country alert 
for education, we annually use a tremendous 
number of schoolbooks. Hundreds, thou- 
sands, millions of schoolbooks are printed each 
year for the purpose of educating and democra- 
tizing our growing citizens.” 

Paul stirred in his chair uneasily. The talk 


148 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

had drifted back into the familiar channels of 
the present. Again the school, Mr. Carter, the 
fifty-dollar bill, and the thoughts that for the 
instant had taken flight now returned to his 
mind, bringing a cloud to his face. 

His father, noticing the shadow, looked 
kindly into the boy’s eyes. 

“ You are tired to-night, son,” he said. 

“ A little.” 

“ Not working too hard? ” 

“ No, sir. I don’t think so.” 

“ Everything going all right at school ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Paper still booming?” 

“Yes, Dad. Going finely.” 

“ I am glad to hear that.” 

Mr. Cameron waited a second. A wild im- 
pulse to take his father into his confidence 
seized Paul. He hesitated. Then it was too 
late. His father rose and with a friendly touch 
on his shoulder strode across the hall and into 
his den. 

“You must not overwork at your editorial 
desk, my boy,” he called jocosely from the dis- 
tant threshold. “It doesn’t pay.” 

Paul heard the door slam. The moment for 
confession had passed. His father had gone 
and he was alone with his conscience and Mr. 
Carter’s fifty-dollar bill. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 

During the next week Paul was obliged to 
go several times to the Echo offices and each 
time he went with the secret hope that he would 
see Mr. Carter and have the opportunity to 
hand back to him the hateful money that burned 
in his breast pocket. The chance, however, 
never came. The door of the great man's pri- 
vate room was continually closed and when the 
boy suggested to the clerk that he wait and talk 
with the publisher, he was told that Mr. Carter 
was engaged and could see no one that day. 
The thought of mailing the money occurred to 
Paul, but as this method of returning it seemed 
precarious and uncertain, he promptly aban- 
doned the idea. For the same reason he was 
unwilling to leave the bill in a sealed envelope 
to be delivered to the editor-in-chief by one of 
the employees. Should a sum so immense, at 
least so immense in the lad's estimation, be lost, 
he never could replace it. Certainly he was in 
trouble enough already without chancing an- 
other dilemma. 

In the meantime he carried the bill around 


150 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

with him, trying in the interval to decide what 
to do with it. Gradually he became accustomed 
to having the money in his possession. It did 
not seem so strange a thing now as it had in the 
beginning. After all, fifty dollars was not 
such a vast sum. To a person of Mr. Carter's 
wealth it probably was nothing at all, an 
amount too trifling to cause a second thought. 
Besides, he had not really bound himself to 
Mr. Carter. He had not actually guaranteed 
to do anything. It was Mr. Carter who had 
insisted that he take the money. 

Unquestionably in exchange for it Paul was 
expected to use his influence to persuade the 
boys of 1920 to sell their paper; still, using 
one's influence did not necessarily mean that 
one must succeed. If he suggested the deal 
and it failed to go through, would he not have 
done all that was required of him? Mr. Car- 
ter had stipulated nothing more than that he 
use his influence. If the Echo owner had over- 
estimated the power of that influence, was not 
that his lookout? No doubt such an under- 
standing was quite customary in business cir- 
cles and was not so important a matter as he 
took it to be. 

The more the lad thought the matter over 
the more plausible the retention of the money 
seemed. To use one's influence was surely a 
legitimate arrangement. It was done in pol- 
itics every day of the week. Weren't individ- 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 151 

uals in high positions constantly accepting tips 
to put through business measures of one sort 
or another, regardless of whether they person- 
ally approved of them or not? To be sure, he 
had heard his father call such money bribe 
money , dirty money , and refer to the men who 
took it as being bought up. 

Paul knew his father scorned such proceed- 
ings. That was the reason he had lost the cam- 
paign when running for mayor against Mr. 
Carter in 1915. It had been an underhanded 
fight and almost everyone in Burmingham, re- 
gardless of party, had thought so. Mr. Carter 
had won the election, it is true, but it had been 
at the expense of the respect of the entire com- 
munity. 

And now he, Paul Cameron, was deserting 
the principles for which his father stood and 
was accepting those of his opponent. Plainly 
speaking, that was what the thing amounted 
to. He was taking money for something he 
disapproved of doing; he was being a traitor to 
his class, to his friends, to the school. The 
boys on the staff of the paper respected and 
trusted him. They would never suspect him of 
treachery. Should he stand up and advocate 
the sale of the March Hare he knew his word 
would have weight. If, on the other hand, he 
manfully presented Mr. Carter’s offer as it hon- 
estly should be presented, he was practically 
sure that the measure would be voted down. 


152 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Yet if he returned the money to Mr. Carter 
and refused to have anything further to do with 
the affair, he must forfeit his typewriter, the 
thing on which he had set his heart. 

What an unlucky snarl it was ! How unfor- 
tunate that the March Hare's bank account 
should have been muddled and its editor driven 
to repair an error that was not his ! Had not 
this occurred, all would have gone smoothly and 
he could have thrust the odious money back in 
Mr. Carter’s face and left his office a free man. 
He hated Mr. Carter, the March Hare , the 
school, and all the web of circumstances in 
which he was entangled! He wanted that 
typewriter. It seemed as if he must have it. 
In the meantime, the May issue of the school 
paper came out and preparations for the June 
number, the last that 1920 would publish, be- 
gan. The swift passing of the days forced 
Paul’s hand. Whichever way he was to act he 
must act soon now, and he found himself no 
nearer a decision than he had been two weeks 
ago. He still had Mr. Carter’s money in his 
pocket, and he was still eyeing the Corona he 
longed for and which he could neither bring 
himself to purchase nor give up; he was, too, 
quite as unreconciled to doing his Alma Mater 
an injury as he had been before. Round and 
round in a circle he went, the same old argu- 
ments bringing him to the same old conclusions. 
There seemed to be no way out. 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 153 

While he was still pondering what he would 
do, an interesting visitor arrived at the Cam- 
eron home. This was Mr. Percy Wright, a 
college classmate of Paul's father and the 
owner of one of the largest paper mills in the 
State. He was a man of magnetic personality 
and wide business experience and Paul in- 
stantly conceived that warm admiration for him 
which a younger boy will often feel for an 
older man. 

A fund of amusing anecdotes rippled from 
Mr. Wright's tongue. It seemed as if there 
was no subject on which he could not converse. 
He had an entertaining story about almost 
every topic suggested and kept the entire Cam- 
eron family laughing heartily through each 
meal. Paul watched the stranger with fasci- 
nated eyes. How charming he was, how witty, 
how clever! And yet Mr. Wright was not al- 
ways jesting. On the contrary, he could be 
very serious when his hobby of paper-making, 
with its many interdependent industries, was 
mentioned. 

He was, for example, in close touch with the 
publication of periodicals, newspapers, and 
books, and he immediately hailed Paul as a 
colleague. 

“ So you are the editor-in-chief of a widely 
circulated monthly magazine, are you, my 
boy?" he remarked. “Well, you certainly 
have an enviable job. It is a pity you are not 


154 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

going to keep on with the work. Your father 
tells me he thinks you have made a great suc- 
cess of it.” 

Paul colored uncomfortably. 

“ Not that I would have you throw over your 
college career,” added Mr. Wright quickly. 
“Not for a moment! But publishing work is 
so alluring! I have always wanted to own a 
newspaper and I have not yet given up hope of 
doing so before I die.” 

“My paper isn’t anything wonderful,” said 
Paul modestly. 

“ But it is a clean, good magazine of its sort. 
I have been looking over several copies of it 
since I have been here. You have nothing to 
be ashamed of. I call the March Hare a 
mighty fine little publication. It’s a splendid 
starter and I ’ll be bound has given you some 
excellent experience. Every paper has to have 
a beginning. All our big newspapers began on 
a small scale. There is some difference be- 
tween one of our modern Sunday issues and the 
Boston News-Letter of long ago.” 

“I don’t think I know what the Boston 
Nezvs-Letter was,” Paul said. 

“You’ve never seen a copy of this early 
Massachusetts newspaper?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Well, it was a small, four-page sheet, 
printed in old type, and filled to a great extent 
with announcements of merchandise that had 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 155 

been shipped from England to the colonies for 
sale: pipes of wine, bolts of homespun, pieces 
of silk, consignments of china. Such things 
came from overseas in those days, and the ar- 
rival of the vessels that brought them was ea- 
gerly awaited by prospective purchasers, for 
there were few luxuries in the New World. 
Along with these advertisements was printed 
the news of the day; and that all this matter 
could be contained in four small pages proves 
how uneventful was early Massachusetts his- 
tory. Now and then some great event would 
command more space. I recall seeing one 
copy of the paper with a picture of the first 
steam locomotive — a crude, amusing picture it 
was, too. Later the Massachusetts Gazette 
appeared, and soon afterward there were other 
papers and other printers scattered throughout 
the respective States. Benjamin Franklin was 
in Boston, you remember, from 1723 until 
1726, when he went to Philadelphia and did 
publishing work until 1756. A hand press 
identical in principle with the one he used is 
still preferred to this day in the large newspaper 
press rooms for striking off proof when the 
amount of it is too small to be put through a 
power press. The hand press is a simple and 
quick agent for getting a result. The ink roller 
is run over the type and hand pressure is ap- 
plied. One could not of course print a large 
newspaper on such a limited scale; but for job- 


156 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

bing work Franklin’s variety of press is still 
acceptable and unrivaled. ,, 

" It seems funny to think of a Boston paper 
ever being so small/’ mused the boy. 

Mr. Wright smiled. 

“And not only small but of infrequent is- 
sue,” said the paper manufacturer. “ In 1709 
there was only one daily paper published in 
London; twelve appeared three times a week; 
and three twice a week.” 

" Great Scott!” 

"Yes, it is amazing, isn’t it? The Tatler 
began in 1709 and The Spectator not long 
afterward. You must recall that the entire 
newspaper industry as we know it has been de- 
veloped within comparatively recent years. 
The great daily, with its Sunday edition of pic- 
tures, colored sheets, news of classified vari- 
eties, and advertising and sporting sections, is 
only possible by means of the modern press 
which has the capacity for turning out in a 
short time such an immense number of papers.” 

Paul listened, fascinated by the subject. 

"Gradually,” went on Mr. Wright, "new 
brains attacked the problems of the small press, 
improving and enlarging it until little by little 
a press was built up which is so intricate and 
so wonderful that it almost ceases to be a ma- 
chine and becomes nearly human. Boston, you 
know, harbors the largest printing press in the 
world. It is made up of 383,000 parts; it 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 157 

carries eight huge rolls of paper weighing from 
thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred pounds, 
four of them at each end ; and in addition it has 
two color presses attached on which the col- 
ored supplement is printed/’ 

“ How do they ever lift such heavy rolls of 
paper into place? ” inquired Paul. 

“A chain is put around them and they are 
hoisted up by machinery,” answered Mr. 
Wright. “ The employees are warned to stand 
from under, too, when they are lifted, for 
should one of those mighty rolls fall, the per- 
son beneath might be seriously injured or per- 
haps killed.” 

“ How many papers can they turn out on a 
press of that size?” was Paul’s next question. 

“ It is possible to turn out 726,000 eight-page 
papers an hour or the equivalent of that quan- 
tity; the number of papers depends on the size 
of them, you see.” 

“What do you suppose good Benjamin 
Franklin would say to that?” laughed Paul. 

“I fancy he would remark a number of 
things,” Mr. Wright returned. “In fact, a 
modern newspaper plant, with its myriad de- 
vices for meeting the business conditions of our 
time, would be quite an education to Franklin, 
as it is to the rest of us. Did you ever see a 
big newspaper printed from start to finish, 
Paul?” 

“No, sir.” 


158 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“Ah, that’s a pity. As a publisher you 
should be better informed on your subject,” 
observed the elder man half teasingly. “ I am 
going to Boston on Saturday. If your father 
is willing would you like to go along with me 
and spend the week-end in town ? ” 

The lad’s eyes shone. 

“ Would I like it ! ” he managed to stammer. 

“ I ’ve got to see some of the business houses 
we supply with paper,” continued Mr. Wright, 
“ and incidentally I am sure I could arrange a 
visit to a big newspaper office Saturday even- 
ing when they are getting out the Sunday pa- 
pers and have all their presses in operation.” 

“ That would be great ! ” 

“I think you would enjoy the trip,” asserted 
Mr. Wright. “The printing of a paper is a 
wonderful process to see. I have a great ad- 
miration and respect for a fine newspaper, any- 
way. When one considers how widely it is 
read and the influence it possesses for good or 
evil, one cannot but take off his hat to it. No 
agency in the community can more quickly stir 
up or allay strife. Public opinion to no small 
extent takes its cue from the papers. They are 
great educators, great molders of the minds of 
the rank and file. Let the papers whisper war 
or national calamity and the stock markets all 
over the world are affected. And that is but 
one of the vital influences the paper wields. 
The temper of the whole people is colored by 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 159 

what they read. Whenever the editorials of 
reputable papers work toward a specific goal, 
they usually achieve it. Have we not had a 
striking example of that during the present 
war? The insidious power of propaganda is 
incalculable. Fortunately our national papers 
are high-minded and patriotic and have directed 
their influence on the side of the good, quiet- 
ing fear, promoting loyalty, encouraging hon- 
esty, and strengthening the nobler impulses that 
govern the popular mind. For people are to 
an extent like a flock of sheep; they give way 
to panic very quickly. What one thinks the 
next one is liable to believe. Much of this 
opinion is in the hands of the newspapers. At 
the same time, the minds of the greater thinkers 
of the country are often clarified by reading the 
opinions mirrored by the press. One cannot 
praise too highly the wisdom and discretion of 
our newspapers during the perilous days of 
war when a word from them might have been 
as a match to tinder, and when they held many 
important secrets in their keeping. The great 
dailies were loyal to the last degree and the con- 
fidence that was placed in them was never be- 
trayed. It was unavoidable that they should 
possess knowledge that the rest of us did not; 
but they never divulged it when cautioned that 
to do so would be against the national welfare. 
The sailings of ships, the departure of troops, 
the names of the ports from which vessels left. 


i6o PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


the shipment of food and supplies — all tidings 
such as these the press withheld.” 

“ It was bully of them ! ” Paul exclaimed with 
enthusiasm. 

“Yes, they rendered a great service. And 
you must remember that it was especially diffi- 
cult since there is always a keen rivalry be- 
tween papers and a tremendous eagerness to 
be the first one with the news. Whenever a 
paper gets inside information of an interesting 
nature there is a great temptation to publish it. 
There have been few such ofifenses, however, 
during the present war, be it said to the news- 
paper men's credit. Hence it became possible 
for the President to grant regular interviews 
to the leading reporters of the country and 
speak to them with comparative frankness with 
regard to national policies without fear that 
what he said would be garbled and turned to 
mischievous ends.” 

“ I don't believe I ever thought before of the 
responsibility the papers had,” remarked Paul 
soberly. 

“Their responsibility is immeasurable,” re- 
plied Mr. Wright. “The opportunity a paper 
has for checking rash judgment and arousing 
the best that is in humanity is endless. That is 
why I should like to control a newspaper, that 
I might make it the mouthpiece of all that is 
highest and noblest. To my mind only persons 
of splendid ideals should be entrusted with the 


THE CAMERONS HAVE A VISITOR 161 


publishing of papers. If the editor is to form 
the opinion of the masses, he should be a man 
worthy of his mission.’’ 

Paul toyed with his cuff-link. 

“So, son,” concluded Mr. Wright, “you’ve 
got to be a very good person if you aim to be a 
newspaper man — at least, that ’s what I think. 
Any printed word is like seed ; it is liable to take 
root you know not where. A paper voices the 
thought of those who produce it. Therefore it 
behooves its makers to consider well their 
thoughts.” 

The boy winced and a flush surged to his 
forehead. Certainly Mr. Wright would not 
approve of the fifty-dollar bill which at that 
instant lay concealed in his pocket. As he 
turned to leave the room, he was very conscious 
of the leather pocketbook that pressed against 
his heart. He wished he was clear of that 
money. But he had already kept it more than 
two weeks and it was of course too late to re- 
turn it now. 


CHAPTER XIV 


PAUL MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 

The trip to Boston which Mr. Wright sug- 
gested materialized into quite as delightful an 
excursion as Paul had anticipated. In fact, 
it was an eventful journey, filled with every 
variety of wonderful experience. 

The elder man and his young guest arrived 
in the city Friday night in plenty of time to en- 
joy what Paul called a great feed and afterward 
go to a moving-picture show. It was odd to 
the suburban boy to awake Saturday morning 
amid the rumble and roar from pavements and 
crowded streets. But there was no leisure to 
gaze from the window down upon the hurrying 
throng beneath, for Mr. Wright was off early 
to keep a business engagement and during his 
absence Paul was to go to the circus. Ac- 
cordingly the lad hurried his dressing and was 
ready to join his host for breakfast promptly at 
eight. 

A league baseball game followed after 
lunch and with a morning and an afternoon so 
crammed with pleasure Paul would have felt 
amply repaid for the trip had no evening’s en- 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 163 

tertainment followed. The evening, however, 
turned out to be the best part of the day; at 
least, when Paul tumbled into bed that night, 
wearied out by his many good times, he asserted 
that the crowning event of his holiday had 
given him more interesting things to think 
about. 

It was not until nine o’clock Saturday even- 
ing that they could go to the newspaper office. 

“ Before that hour,” explained Mr. Wright, 
“ there will be very little for us to see. The 
compositors, of course, will previously have 
been busy setting type ; but you can get an idea 
how that is done in a very short time. What I 
want you to see are the giant presses when they 
are running to their full capacity. To get out 
the Sunday edition of the paper the entire plant 
is in operation.” 

Therefore the two travelers loitered long at 
dinner and at nine o’clock presented themselves 
at the magic spot where they were to meet one 
of Mr. Wright’s friends who was to show them 
through the various departments of the press 
plant. 

When they reached this Eldorado, however, 
Paul was disappointed. 

The manager’s office seemed very quiet. A 
dim light burned and a few men moved in and 
out of the adjacent rooms. Now and then a 
telephone jangled, or a reporter, perched on the 
arm of a chair or on the corner of a desk, took 


164 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

out a yellow sheet of paper and ran his eye over 
its contents. But there was none of the bustle 
and rush that the lad had pictured. But be- 
fore Paul had had time to become really down- 
hearted, the door of an inner office opened and a 
man came forward to meet them. 

“Ah, Wright, I’m glad to see you!” he 
called, extending his hand. 

“I’m glad to see you too, Hawley. I ex- 
pect we’re making you a deal of trouble and 
that you wish us at the bottom of the Dead 
Sea ” 

“Not a bit of it!” 

“That’s mighty nice of you,” laughed Mr. 
Wright. “ I give you my word, I appreciate it. 
This is my young friend Paul Cameron, the 
editor-in-chief of the Burmingham March 
Haver 

If Mr. Hawley were ignorant of the March 
Hare's existence or speculated at all as to what 
that unique publication might be, he at least 
gave no sign; instead he took Paul’s hand, re- 
marking gravely : 

“ I am glad to know you, Cameron,” upon the 
receipt of which courtesy Cameron rose fully 
two inches in his boots and declared with equal 
fervor : 

“ I am glad to meet you too, Mr. Hawley.” 

To have seen them one would have thought 
they had been boon companions at press club 
dinners or associates in newspaper work all 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 165 

their days. “ I ’m going to take you upstairs 
first,” Mr. Hawley said briskly. “We may 
as well begin at the beginning and show you 
how type is set. I don’t know whether you 
have ever seen any type-making and typesetting 
machines or not.” 

“I haven’t seen anything,” Paul confessed 
frankly. 

The newspaper man looked both amused and 
pleased. 

“I’m rather glad of that,” he remarked, 
“ for it is much more interesting to explain a 
process to a person to whom it is entirely new. 
Formerly the method of setting type for the 
press was a tedious undertaking and one very 
hard on the eyes ; but now this work is all done, 
or is largely done, by linotype machines that 
place in correct order the desired letters, 
grouping them into words and carefully 
spacing and punctuating them. The linotype 
operator has before him a keyboard and as he 
presses the keys in succession, the letter or 
character necessary drops into its proper place 
in the line that is being made up. These letters 
are then cast as they stand in a solid, one-line 
piece. With the lines thus made up, the com- 
positors are relieved of a great proportion of 
their labor. Later I will show you how this is 
done. 

“ In the composing room there is also the mon- 
otype, another ingenious invention, which pro- 


1 66 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


duces single letters and prepares them for cast- 
ing. With two such machines you might sup- 
pose that the compositor would have little to do. 
Nevertheless, in spite of each of these labor- 
saving devices, there are always odd jobs to be 
done that cannot be performed by either of these 
agencies; there are short articles, the making 
up and designing of pages, advertisements, and 
a score of things outside the scope of either 
linotype or monotype.” 

Paul listened attentively. 

“ After the words have been formed and the 
lines cast by the linotype, the separate lines are 
arranged by the compositors inside a frame the 
exact size of the page of the paper to be printed. 
This frame or form as we call it, is divided 
into columns and after all the lines of type, the 
cuts, and advertisements to be used are ar- 
ranged inside it, so that there is no waste space, 
a cast is made of the entire form and its con- 
tents. This cast is then fitted upon the rollers 
of the press, inked, and successive impressions 
made from it. This, in simple language, is 
what we are going to see and constitutes the 
printing of a paper.” 

Paul nodded. 

“Of course,” continued Mr. Hawley, “we 
shall see much more than that. We shall, for 
example, see how cuts and advertisements are 
made; photographs copied and the plates pre- 
pared for transfer to the paper; color sheets 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 167 

in process of making; in fact, all the varied de- 
partments of staff work. But what I have told 
you are the underlying principles of the project. 
I want you to understand them at the outset so 
that you will not become confused.” 

“I think I have it pretty straight,” smiled 
Paul. 

“ Very well, then; we ’ll get to work.” 

“ Not that I thoroughly understand how all 
this is done,” added the boy quickly. “ But I 
have the main idea and when I see the thing in 
operation I shall comprehend it more clearly, I 
am sure. You see, I don’t really know much 
of anything about printing a paper. All I am 
actually sure of is that often the making up of 
a page is a big puzzle. I’ve had enough ex- 
perience to find that out.” 

“That is sometimes a puzzle for us, too,” 
smiled Mr. Hawley. “Fitting stuff into the 
available space is not always easy. Usually, 
however, we know just how many words can 
be allowed a given article and can make up our 
forms by estimating the mathematical measure- 
ment such copy will require. When the type is 
set in the forms, so accurately cut are the edges, 
and so closely do the lines fit together, the whole 
thing can be picked up and held upside down 
and not a piece of its mosaic fall out. That is 
no small stunt to accomplish. It means that 
every edge and corner of the metal type is ab- 
solutely true and exact. If it were not, the 


1 68 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


form would not lock up, or fit together. The 
letters, too, are all on the same level and the 
lines parallel. Geometrically, it is a perfect 
surface.” 

“Some picture puzzle!” Mr. Wright ob- 
served merrily. 

“One better than a jigsaw puzzle,” said Mr. 
Hawley. “Our pieces are smaller.” 

The three visitors stepped from the elevator 
and paused at the door of a crowded room, 
where many men were at work. 

“ These are the composing rooms,” explained 
Mr. Hawley. “Here the copy sent us by re- 
porters and editors is set up for the press. 
Along the walls you will see tiers of drawers in 
which type of various kinds and sizes is kept. 
The style or design of letter is called the ‘ face \ 
and there are a great many sorts of faces, as 
you will notice by the labels on the drawers. 
There is Cheltenham, Ionic, Gothic — a multi- 
tude of others. There are, in addition, almost 
as many sizes of letters as there are faces, the 
letters running from large to a very small, or 
agate size which is used for footnotes.” 

He opened a drawer and Paul glanced inside 
it. 

“ But the letters do not seem to be arranged 
with any system at all,” exclaimed the boy in 
surprise. “ I don’t see how the men can ever 
find what they want. I should think — ” 

He broke off, embarrassed. 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 169 

“ You should think what?” asked Mr. Haw- 
ley good-humoredly. 

“Why, it just seems to me that if the letters 
were arranged in alphabetical order it would be 
a great deal easier to get them when one was 
in a hurry.” 

“ It would seem so on the face of it,” agreed 
Mr. Hawley, pleased by the lad’s intelligence. 
“ Printers, however, never arrange type that 
way. Instead, they put in the spot nearest at 
hand the letters they will use oftenest. It saves 
time. The men soon become accustomed to the 
position of these and can put their hands on 
them quickly and without the least trouble. 
The largest compartments in the drawers are 
given over to the letters most commonly in use, 
such as vowels and frequently recurring con- 
sonants. The letter Z you will notice has only 
a small space allowed it ; X, too, is not much in 
demand.” 

“ I see.” 

“ Take one of these letters out and examine 
it.” 

Paul did so. 

It was a thin bar of what appeared to be lead 
and was an inch long. On the end of it a single 
letter was cast. 

“ Besides these cases of letters, we have 
drawers of marks and signs arranged accord- 
ing to the same system, those most often in use 
being at the front of the drawer.” 


170 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ It must have taken forever to hunt up the 
right letters and spell out the words before 
linotypes were invented,” mused Paul. 

“ Yes, any amount of time was wasted that 
way,” said Mr. Hawley. “The strain on the 
eyes was, too, something appalling. It is quite 
another matter to sit at a keyboard and with the 
pressure of a key assemble the proper matrices, 
as the type molds are called, and arrange in 
desired order correctly spaced and punctuated 
lines of type. Come over here and see how the 
work is done.” 

Crossing the floor, they stood before a ma- 
chine where an operator was busy fingering a 
keyboard as if it were a typewriter. As he 
touched each key, it released a letter, and at 
the back of the machine Paul could see the 
silvery gleam as the miniature bar of metal 
dropped down and slipped into its place in the 
lengthening series of words. As soon as the 
row increased to line length, it moved along and 
a new line of words was assembled. The pro- 
cess was fascinating and the boy watched it 
spellbound. 

“ That ’s corking ! ” he at last burst out. 

“ It is a marvelous invention, certainly, ” re- 
sponded Mr. Hawley, delighted by the enthu- 
siasm of the March Hare's editor. 

“ What metal is used for casting type ? ” in- 
quired Paul suddenly. “ It looks like lead.” 

“ It is not pure lead,” Mr. Hawley answered. 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 171 

“That metal has been found to be much too 
soft; it soon wears down and loses its outline 
and its sharp edges. So an alloy of antimony 
is mixed with the lead and a composition is 
made that is harder and more durable. ,, 

“ It must be quite a stunt to get the mixture 
just right,” remarked Paul. 

Again the newspaper man smiled with pleas- 
ure. It was a satisfaction to have so intelli- 
gent an audience. 

“ You have put your finger on a very impor- 
tant feature of the newspaper business,” he 
rejoined. “The man who prepares the metal 
solution and keeps it at just the proper degree 
of temperature for casting is the person to 
whom the printer owes no small measure of his 
success. When we go downstairs, we shall see 
how the forms that are set here are cast in two 
large metal sections that fit on the two halves of 
the cylindrical rollers of the press. A mold of 
the form is first made from a peculiar kind of 
cardboard, a sort of papier-mache , and by forc- 
ing hot metal into this mold a cast, or stereo- 
type, of the page is taken. It is from this metal 
stereotype that the paper is printed. After the 
two sections are fastened securely upon the 
cylinders and inked by machinery, the great 
webs of paper at either end of the press unroll, 
and as they move over the rapidly turning 
wheels, your daily newspaper is printed for 
you.” 


172 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ Are we going to see it done?” asked Paul 
eagerly. 

“ We certainly are,” said Mr. Hawley, lead- 
ing the way toward the elevator. 

“ Of course the compositors have to be very 
sure before the forms go to the stereotype cast- 
ing room that there are no mistakes in them, I 
suppose,” Paul ventured thoughtfully. 

“Yes. There is no correcting the stereo- 
type after it is once made,” replied Mr. Hawley. 
“ Everything is corrected and any exchange of 
letters made before it is cast. Men who handle 
type constantly become very expert in detect- 
ing errors, many compositors being able to read 
type upside down, or in reversed order, as eas- 
ily as you can read a straightforward line of 
printed matter.” 

Mr. Hawley paused. 

“In addition to this department,” he pres- 
ently continued, “ is the room where the plates 
for the color section of the paper are prepared. 
After the drawing for the pictures is made, it 
is outlined on a block of metal and afterward 
cut out, so that the design remains in relief; 
then the impression is taken with colored inks, 
a separate printing being made for each color in 
turn, except where the colors are permitted to 
fuse before they dry in order to produce a sec- 
ondary tone. You doubtless have seen the lith- 
ograph process and know how the first printing 
colors all the parts of the picture that are red, 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 173 

for example ; the next impression prints the blue 
parts; and the third those that are green.” 

“ Yes, I’ve seen posters printed.” 

“ Then you know how the work is done.” 

“And it is for printing this colored supple- 
ment that the color-decks at each end of the 
big press are used ? ” 

“ Precisely. We often run these colored sec- 
tions of the Sunday edition off some weeks in 
advance, as they are independent parts of the 
paper and need not necessarily be turned out 
at the last moment as the news sections must.” 

“I see.” 

“We also have our designing rooms for the 
drawing of fashion pictures, and the illustra- 
tions to accompany advertisements. All that 
is a department in itself, and a most interest- 
ing branch of the work. These cuts are pre- 
pared on sheets of metal and are cast and 
printed as the rest of the paper is ; they are set 
into the forms and stereotyped by the same 
method as the printed matter. When we want 
reproductions from photographs we have a 
photo-engraving department where by means of 
a very powerful electric light we can reproduce 
pictures of all sorts; pen-drawings, facsimiles 
of old prints, photographs, and every variety of 
picture imaginable. These are developed on 
a sheet of metal instead of on a glass plate and 
then reproduced.” 

“That is the way you get the fine picture 


174 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

sheets that you enjoy so much, Paul/’ put in 
Mr. Wright. 

“ The photo-engraving took the place of the 
woodcut/’ Mr. Hawley explained. “ The pro- 
cess has been constantly improved until now we 
are able to get wonderfully artistic results.” 

“ I had no idea there were so many different 
departments required to get out a paper,” re- 
marked Paul slowly. “ It is an awful piece of 
work, isn’t it?” 

Their guide laughed. 

“It is quite a project,” he answered. “Of 
course, much of it becomes routine, and we 
think nothing about it. But I am sure that 
few persons who read the papers realize the 
great amount of time and thought that goes 
into turning out a good, up-to-date, artistically 
illustrated newspaper. The mere mechanical 
toil required is enormous; and in addition to 
this labor there is all the bustle, rush, and ri- 
valry attending the securing of the latest news. 
The editorial office has its set of problems, as 
you know, if you yourself get out a paper.” 

“ I ’ve been so absorbed in the machinery that 
I forgot the editorial end of it for a moment,” 
Paul said. 

“Don’t forget it, for it is the backbone of 
the business,” replied Mr. Hawley. “ All that 
part of our work is conducted as systematically 
as the rest. Each editorial writer and reporter 
is detailed to his particular work and must have 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 175 

his copy in promptly; he must know his facts 
and write them up with accuracy, charm, and 
spirit, the articles must also have the punch that 
will carry them and make people interested in 
reading them. A writer who can’t turn out 
this sort of stuff has no place in the newspaper 
world. Every article that comes in is either 
used, returned, or filed away and catalogued 
for future reference ; we call the room where the 
envelopes containing such matter are stacked 
the graveyard. Every newspaper has its 
graveyard. Into it goes stuff that has perhaps 
been paid for and never printed; clippings that 
can be used for reference; every sort of mate- 
rial. We can put our hand on any article filed, 
at a moment’s notice. Come in and see for 
yourself the great tiers of shelves with the con- 
tents of each shelf classified and marked.” 

Paul followed him. 

There indeed was the room, its shelves reach- 
ing to its ceiling and as neatly and completely 
arranged as they would be in a library. Sec- 
tions were given over to business interests ; to 
well-known men and women; to accidents; to 
shipping; to material of every description. 

The visitors could not, however, delay to 
investigate this department, fascinating as it 
was. They were hurried on to another floor 
and were shown where all the accounts of ad- 
vertisers were computed by means of an auto- 
matic device that registered the space taken by 


176 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

a specific firm and the price of such space. 
There was also a circulation department where 
lists of subscribers and records of their sub- 
scriptions were filed and billed. 

Such ingenious contrivances were new to the 
village boy and his eyes widened. “I think 
we ought to pay more for our papers,” he 
gasped. “ I had no idea that publishing a news- 
paper meant so much work. I don’t think we 
pay half enough money for all this trouble.” 

Mr. Hawley smiled. 

“ Sometimes I don’t think we do either,” he 
said. 

“This is such a tremendous plant!” the boy 
went on breathlessly. 

“ Our paper is more of an undertaking, then, 
than your March Hare ” 

“ Well, rather ! ” chuckled Paul. “ I thought 
we had quite a proposition until I saw all this. 
Now the mere writing of copy seems like noth- 
ing at all. What a job it is to print the stuff 
after you get it ! ” 

“ They say there is no better way to become 
cheered up than to take a peep at some other 
fellow’s tribulations,” Mr. Hawley declared. 
“ Now suppose you go down to the press room 
and see some of ours at first hand.” 

He led the way to an elevator that dropped 
them quickly to the basement of the building. 

“Do they always put the presses down- 
stairs?” asked Paul. 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 177 

“ Practically always, yes,” replied Mr. Haw- 
ley. “ It is necessary to do so because of the 
immense weight of the presses. The problems 
of the vibration of machinery and the support 
of its weight always govern all factory con- 
struction and the building of plants of a similar 
nature. Most newspaper presses are therefore 
placed on solid ground, or as near it as possible, 
in order to minimize the difficulties arising 
from these two conditions. Some years ago, 
however, the Boston Post ventured an innova- 
tion by arranging its presses one over the other, 
three in a tier ; and as the experiment has proved 
a success, many other large newspapers in va- 
rious parts of the country have followed their 
example.” 

“ If floor space can be economized it must be 
a great saving to newspaper plants whose build- 
ings are in the heart of a city; real estate is no 
small item of expense,” observed Mr. Wright. 

“ Precisely,” agreed Mr. Hawley. “Yet 
high as were rentals and taxes, no one had had 
the courage to try a press constructed on an- 
other plan. It meant, of course, a new set of 
difficulties to solve. I happen to know, for in- 
stance, that when the floor for the sub-base- 
ment of the Post was constructed, the beams 
were set close enough together to support a 
weight of four hundred pounds to each square 
foot of space. This was not entirely necessary 
but it was done as a precaution against accident. 


178 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Sometimes the mammoth rolls of paper fed 
into the presses fall when being hoisted into 
place and drop with a crash. If the floor were 
not strong the whole fifteen hundred pounds 
might go through and carry everything with 
it. The builders wished to be prepared for an 
emergency of this sort. ,, 

“ They were wise.” 

“They could take no chances,” said Mr. 
Hawley gravely. “The cellars, you see, run 
five stories below ground. They had to dig 
down, down, down to get the room they needed. 
The disadvantage of this is that all materials 
and all the printed papers as well have to be 
hoisted to and from the ground floor, and air 
and water must be pumped from the street level. 
Nevertheless, that this can be done has been 
proved. The questions of heating and ventila- 
tion are the most serious ones, for in the press 
rooms the thermometer cannot be permitted to 
vary more than a few degrees, either in winter 
or summer; any marked difference in tempera- 
ture instantly affects the flow of the ink, caus- 
ing no end of trouble. For that reason we have 
fans and all sorts of mechanical contrivances 
to keep the rooms at the desired heat.” 

“I should think you had conquered almost 
every imaginable difficulty,” Mr. Wright re- 
marked. 

“ Pretty nearly,” returned Mr. Hawley good- 
naturedly. 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 179 

They had now reached the lowest floor and 
the press rooms were a whir of noise and clat- 
ter. As the three entered, the hum of the ma- 
chinery rendered further speech impossible. 

Paul gazed up at the presses that towered 
high above his head. 

There was the mighty machine and there 
were the hurrying workers, walking about it; 
some stood on the cement floor, and others 
moved here and there along the small swing- 
ing platforms that circled the upper part of the 
leviathan. In mid-air, held by mighty chains, 
hung the rolls of blank paper that were soon to 
be transformed into newspapers. As the vast 
spools of unprinted material were reeled off, 
the ribbons of whiteness passed like a spider’s 
web in and out the turning wheels, and as they 
moved over the inked cylinders that printed 
them on both sides, the happenings of the 
world were recorded with lightning speed. In 
the meantime into the racks below were con- 
stantly dropping papers neatly folded, — papers 
that were finished and had each section ar- 
ranged in its proper place; and to Paul’s amaze- 
ment an automatic machine counted these as 
they came from the press. 

Whenever a certain number of papers were 
counted out a man came forward, hoisted the 
lot to his shoulder and disappeared into the 
elevator with it ; or handed it to some one whose 
duty it was to load it on to a truck, carry it up- 


i8o PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


stairs, and put it into one of the myriad 
wagons that waited at the curb for its load. 
As fast as these wagons were filled they dashed 
off, bearing the Sunday editions to railway sta- 
tions for shipping, or to distributing centers 
throughout the city; others had wrappers put 
on them and were dispatched to the mailing de- 
partment to be addressed and forwarded to 
patrons who lived out of town. 

“Some business, eh, Paul?” said Mr. 
Wright. 

“You bet it is!” 

“ About one third of all the wood-pulp paper 
produced in America goes into newspapers and 
periodicals,” Mr. Hawley managed to shout 
above the uproar of the whirling wheels. 
“ That is where so many of our spruce, poplar, 
and hemlock trees go. Telephone books, tele- 
phone blanks, transfers for electric cars, city 
directories, play bills, consume a lot of paper; 
then in addition to the papers printed in Eng- 
lish there are in America papers printed in 
fifty different foreign languages. ” 

“ I don’t wonder there was a shortage of pa- 
per during the war, ” stammered Paul. 

“ It hit us pretty close,” Mr. Hawley owned. 
“Our Sunday editions had to be curtailed a 
good deal, and many of the monthly publica- 
tions were put out of business entirely by the 
high cost of paper. The monthly magazine 
is, you know, a great seller in rural communi- 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 181 


ties. A newspaper is usually a local affair ; but 
the monthly circulates all over the country and 
is not by any means confined to the district in 
which it is published.” 

“ It makes a nice lot of work for the Post 
Office Department/’ put in Mr. Wright jest- 
ingly. 

“ Yes, it does/’ agreed Mr. Hawley. 

“ I suppose book publishing and music pub- 
lishing take more paper/’ mused Paul. 

“Yes. The printing of music is an expen- 
sive and fussy piece of work, too. It must be 
accurately done, and done by men who are ex- 
perienced in that special kind of work. One 
misprint will cause a discord and throw the 
music out of sale. Of course if a song turns 
out to be popular, a small fortune is often 
reaped from it; but if it is not, the cost of get- 
ting it out is so great that little is netted by the 
publishers.” 

They moved on into another room where it 
was more quiet, leaving the hum of the presses 
behind them. 

“ This,” explained Mr. Hawley, “ is the stere- 
otype-casting room of which I told you. It is 
here that the papier-mache forms made from 
the forms you saw in linotype are brought and 
cast in solid pieces for the presses. Let us 
watch the process. You can see how they fas- 
ten the paper impression around this mold so 
that the cast of it can be taken. The hot metal 


1 82 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


is run in, and pressed into every depression of 
the cardboard. The thickness of these semi- 
cylindrical casts is carefully specified and over 
there is a machine that pares off or smooths 
away all superfluous material so that they come 
out exactly the proper thickness ; otherwise they 
would not fit the rollers of the press.” 

Paul watched. Sure enough! After being 
cast, the half sections of stereotype were put 
into the machine indicated and moved quickly 
along, being planed off as they went ; when they 
emerged the wrong side of them was smooth 
and even. 

“ This kettle or tank of hot metal,” went on 
Mr. Hawley, pointing to a vat of seething com- 
position, “ has to be kept, as I explained to you, 
at a specified degree of heat if we are to get suc- 
cessful stereotypes of our forms. Therefore a 
great deal depends on the skill and judgment of 
the man who prepares and melts down the mix- 
ture bubbling in that kettle. Without his brain 
and experience there could be no newspapers.” 

As he spoke Mr. Hawley waved a salutation 
to the workman in blue overalls who was study- 
ing the indicator beside the furnace. 

“That indicator tells the exact temperature 
of the melted solution in the kettle; also the 
temperature of the furnace. There can be no 
variation in heat without hindering the work of 
casting, and perhaps wrecking the casts and 
wasting a quantity of material. So on that 


A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY 183 

little chap over there by the fire hangs our 
fate.” 

The workman heard the words and smiled, 
and Paul smiled in return. 

“ Do they make stereotypes for circular roll- 
ers and print books this same way ? ” he asked. 

“ No. Most books are electrotyped, the ma- 
chinery being much less complex than is the 
newspaper press. A rotary press cannot do 
such fine or accurate work.” 

For a moment they lingered, watching the 
busy scene with its shifting figures. Then they 
stepped into the elevator and were shot up to 
the street level. The hands of the clock stood 
at eleven when at last they emerged upon the 
sidewalk. 

Paul sighed. 

“ Tired? ” 

“ Rather, sir ; are n’t you ? ” 

“ Well, I just feel as if I had played sixteen 
holes of golf,” Mr. Wright replied. They 
laughed together. 

“ But, Jove ! It was worth, it though, was n’t 
it ? ” cried Paul. 

“ I think so.” 

“ I, too ! Only,” added the boy, “ I still be- 
lieve we ought to pay more for our newspa- 
pers.” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE DECISION 

For the next few days after his return from 
Boston Paul thought and talked of little else 
save the great newspaper press that he had 
seen. Beside a project as tremendous as the 
publication of a widely circulated daily the 
March Hare became a pitifully insignificant 
affair. 

Nevertheless the March Hare was not to be 
thrust aside. It clamored for attention. Its 
copy came in as before from students and staff, 
and mixed with this material were some excep- 
tionally fine articles from parents and distant 
alumnae. Judge Damon had taken to contrib- 
uting a short, crisp editorial almost every 
month, something of civic or national impor- 
tance; and two of Burmingham’s graduates 
who were in France sent letters that added an 
international flavor to the magazine. Never 
had the issues been so good. Certainly the 
monthly so modestly begun had ripened into an 
asset that all the town would regret to part 
with. 

In the meantime graduation was approaching 


THE DECISION 


i85 

and the day was drawing near when 1920 must 
bid good-by to the familiar halls of the school, 
and instead of standing and looking down from 
the top of the ladder, as it now did, it must set 
forth into the turmoil of real life where its 
members would once again be beginners. 
What an ironic transformation that would be ! 
A senior was a person looked up to by the entire 
student body, a dignitary to be treated with pro- 
found respect. But once outside the shelter- 
ing walls of his Alma Mater he would suddenly 
become a very ordinary being who, like Sam- 
son shorn of his locks, would enter business or 
college a weak, timid neophyte. It seemed ab- 
surd that such a change could be wrought in so 
short a time. 

But before the day when the diplomas with 
their stiff white bows would be awarded, the 
future fate of the March Hare must be de- 
cided. Every recurrence of this thought 
clouded Paul’s brow. He still had intact Mr. 
Carter’s fifty-dollar bill. It was as crisp and 
fresh as on the day the magnate of Burming- 
ham had put it into his hand, and the typewriter 
Paul coveted still glistened in the window of a 
shop on the main street. Day after day he had 
vacillated between the school and that fascinat- 
ing store window, and each day he had looked, 
envied, and come home again. It was now so 
late that the purchase of this magic toy would 
be of little use to him. Nevertheless, he 


1 86 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


wanted it. Every night when he went to bed 
he quieted his conscience’s accusations of cow- 
ardice by arguing that the money had not been 
spent. But not spending it, he was forced to 
own, was far from being the same thing as re- 
turning it. It was strange that it should be so 
hard for him to part with that money ! 

In the interim he had cashed in his war 
stamps and with the additional sum he had 
earned for doing the chores around the place 
he and Melville Carter had paid the bill the 
March Hare owed and deposited the remainder 
of their combined cash in the bank, so that the 
accounts now stood even. Whatever should 
now become of the magazine, its slate was a 
clean one so far as its financial standing went. 

Having thus disposed of all debts and en- 
tanglements, only the adjustment of the deal 
with Mr. Carter remained. This was not so 
easily to be cleared from Paul’s path. 

It was his first thought in the morning, his 
last at night. He could never escape from it. 
Whenever he was in jubilant mood and in a 
flood of boyish happiness had forgotten it, it 
arose like a specter to torment him. What was 
he going to do with that money that he had kept 
so long? And what was he going to say to 
his classmates to earn it, — for earn it he must, 
since he had accepted it. It was a wretched 
position to be in. Why had n’t he given the bill 
back to the great man that day in the office? 


THE DECISION 


187 

Or if he had no opportunity then, why hadn’t 
he carried it promptly to the Echo building the 
next morning? He might have gone to Mr. 
Carter’s house with it. There were a score of 
ways it might have been delivered to its rightful 
owner. Alas, he had been very weak, and by 
drifting along and taking no positive action 
had got himself into the dilemma in which he 
now floundered. 

It was the president of 1921 who suddenly 
brought him up with a sharp turn by remarking 
one day: 

“Well, Kip, you people of 1920 have cer- 
tainly set us a pretty pace on the March Hare . 
I don’t know whether, when it descends to us, 
we shall be able to keep it up to your standard 
or not.” 

“ Descends to you ! ” repeated Paul vaguely. 

“ Yes. Of course 1920 is going to pass it on. 
You fellows can’t very well take it with you,” 
laughed the junior. 

Paul evaded a direct answer. 

“You never can tell which way a hare will 
run,” he replied. 

“You can usually figure on the direction he 
will take, though,” retorted the under-classman, 
whose name was Converse. “ 1920 has done 
the school a big service by founding the paper 
and outlining its policy. My father was saying 
only last night that the magazine was well 
worth putting on a permanent business basis. 


1 88 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

He said that if an experienced publishing house 
had the handling of it it could be made into a 
money-making proposition — that is if every- 
body, young and old, would keep up their same 
enthusiasm for turning in stuff so the tone of 
the thing was not spoiled.” 

“ I believe that, too.” 

“ It would n’t be such a bad idea if next year 
we could get in an experienced hand to help us, 
would it? ” 

The moment Paul dreaded had come. 

He summoned all his dignity. 

“I am not sure,” he answered, “just what 
1920 will decide to do with the paper when we 
finish the year. We may sell it.” 

“What! You don’t mean sell it to an out- 
sider?” 

“We have an opportunity to do so.” 

“But — but — how could you? It’s the 
property of the school, isn’t it?” stammered 
Converse. 

“ No, not as I see it. A few of us 1920 fel- 
lows started it and have done all the work, or 
the bulk of it. If we choose to sell it, I don’t 
see why we have n’t a right to.” 

“But — Great hat, Kip! You certainly 
would n’t do that ! ” protested the junior. 

“Why not?” 

“Because — well — it would be so darn yel- 
low,” burst out the other boy. “Even if the 
thing is yours — why — ,” he broke off help- 


THE DECISION 189 

lessly. “And anyway, how could you? Any 
number of people are interested in it.” 

“ They could keep on being interested in it.” 

“ You mean somebody else would publish it ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“As it is now?” 

“Practically. They would give it a more 
professional touch, no doubt.” 

“ Do you think for a second that in the hands 
of a cut and dried publisher it would be the 
same?” asked Converse hotly. “Do you im- 
agine people would send in articles to it as they 
do now?” 

“ I don’t see why not.” 

“ They would n’t — not on your life ! Why, 
the reason that everybody has pitched in and 
written for us was precisely because the thing 
was not professional, and they knew they would 
be free of criticism. The columns have become 
a sort of town forum, my father said. Do you 
think you could get the same people to speak 
out under different conditions ? Judge Damon, 
for instance, has repeatedly refused to write for 
the professional press. He could get a fat 
sum for such editorials as he writes for us if 
he wanted to sell them. Father said so. Be- 
sides, what’s to become of 1921 if you sell out 
the March Hare? We couldn’t run a rival 
paper. If the Hare continued, of course people 
would take a thing that was already established 
and that they knew about, especially as it had 


190 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

been so bully. It would end us so far as a 
school magazine was concerned.” 

Paul offered no reply. 

“ I 'd call it a darn mean trick if you put such 
a deal over,” persisted Converse indignantly, 
“ and I guess everybody else would. I suppose 
you would have the legal right to sell out if 
you wanted to; but it has been tacitly under- 
stood from the first that the paper was started 
for the good of the school and would be handed 
down to your successors.” 

“ I don't see why everybody should jump at 
that conclusion.” 

“ Because it is the natural, square thing to 
do. Anybody would tell you so.” 

“ I don't need to take a popular vote to settle 
my affairs,” returned Paul haughtily. 

“ You may have to in this case,” called Con- 
verse, turning on his heel. 

The incident left Paul nettled and disturbed, 
and in consequence the Latin recitation that 
followed went badly; so did his chemistry exam. 

The instant recess came he signalled to his 
closest literary associates and beckoning them 
into an empty classroom, banged the door. 

“See here, you chaps,” he began, “I've 
something to put up to you. We have had an 
offer to sell the March Hare . How does the 
proposition strike you ? ” 

The boys regarded their leader blankly. 

“You mean to — to — sell it out for 


THE DECISION 


191 

money ?” inquired one of the group stupidly. 

Paul laughed. 

“What else could we sell it out for, fat- 
head?” he returned good-humoredly. 

“But — to sell it out for cash, as it stands — 
you mean that ? ” 

“Righto!” 

“ Somebody wants to buy it?” 

“Yes.” 

“Gee!” 

“We certainly are some little editors,” 
chuckled Melville Carter. “Who is the bid- 
der, Kip?” 

“Yes, Kip, who wants it?” came breath- 
lessly from one and another of the group. 

It was evident they had no inkling who the 
prospective purchaser was. 

“Mr. Carter.” 

“Carter — of the Echo ?” 

“ My father ? ” gasped Melville, dumfounded. 

“Yes, he has offered to buy us out,” contin- 
ued Paul steadily. “He’ll give us a certain 
sum of money to divide between us.” 

“But could we sell?” asked Melville slowly. 

“The thing is ours, isn’t it?” replied Paul. 
“ Have n’t we planned it, built it up, and done 
all the work? ” 

“ Yes,” Melville admitted in a half-convinced 
tone. 

“ I suppose, in point of fact, it really is ours,” 
remarked Donald Hall. “But it would be a 


192 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

rotten, low-down trick for us to sell it away 
from the school and from 1921, I think.” 

“Did my father suggest it?” queried Mel- 
ville. 

“Yes. He is quite keen on it. He says it 
can be made a paying proposition.” 

There was a pause. 

“ What do you think of the offer, Kip? ” 

It was one of the members of the editorial 
staff who spoke. 

“I?” 

Paul turned crimson. 

The question was painfully direct. 

“Yes,” demanded the other boys. “What 
do you say, Kipper ? What ’s your opinion ? ” 

Paul looked uneasily into the faces of his 
friends. Their eyes were fixed eagerly upon 
him. In their gaze he could read confidence 
and respect. A flood of scorn for his own 
cowardice overwhelmed him. He straightened 
himself. 

“ If you want to know what I honestly think,” 
he heard himself saying, “ I ’d call it a beastly 
shame to sell out.” 

There was a shout of approval. There was 
only one boy who did not join in the hubbub; it 
was Weldon. 

“How much would Carter give us apiece?” 
he asked. 

“ Shut up, you old grafter ! ” snapped Roger 
Bell. “There's no use in your knowing. 


THE DECISION 


193 

You’re voted down already. Kip’s perfectly 
right. We don’t want the Echo's money.” 

“Tell Carter there’s nothing doing,” put in 
a high voice. 

“You decide, then, to bequeath the March 
Hare to 1921 with our blessing?” asked Paul, 
with a laugh. 

“ Sure we do ! ” 

“We are poor but honest!” piped Charlie 
Decker, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling with 
a gesture that brought a roar of applause. 
Charlie was the class joke. 

A gong sounded. 

“ There ’s the bell ! ” cried somebody. “ All 
aboard for Greek A ! ” 

Melville Carter reached across and rumpled 
up Donald Hall’s hair. 

“Quit it, kiddo!” protested Donald nerv- 
ously, drawing back from his chum’s grasp. 

“ What ’s the matter with you, all of a sud- 
den ? ” demanded Melville, surprised. 

“Nothing! Cut it out, that’s all.” 

“ Are n’t you coming to Greek ? ” asked young 
Carter. 

“ In a minute. Trot along; I want to speak 
to Kip.” 

The throng filed out until only Donald and 
Paul were in the room. 

The editor-in-chief was standing alone at the 
window. For the first time in weeks he was 
drawing the breath of freedom. A weight 


194 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

seemed removed from his soul. He had been 
weak and vacillating, but when the test had 
come he had not been false either to himself or 
to his friends. That at least was something. 

Thinking that he was alone, he drew from his 
pocket the fifty-dollar bill that was to have been 
the price of his undoing, and looked at it. He 
would take it back that very day to Mr. Carter 
and confess that he had not fulfilled the con- 
tract the newspaper owner had tried to force 
upon him. A smile parted his lips. It was as 
he turned to leave the room that he encountered 
Donald Hall. 

The expression of the lad's face gave him a 
start ; there was shame, regret, suffering in it. 

“ What's the matter, Don?" Paul asked. 

The boy tried to speak but no words came. 

“ You 're not sick, old chap ? " 

“ No. Why?" 

“You look so darn queer. Anything I can 
do for you?" 

“ N — o. No, I guess not. I just waited to 
see if you were coming along." 

“ Yes, I 'm coming right now," returned Paul 
briskly. “We'll both have to be hopping, or 
we'll be late. So long! See you later." 

The boys passed out into the corridor to- 
gether and there fled in opposite directions. 

But Donald’s face haunted Paul through the 
rest of the morning. What could be the matter 
with the boy? 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN AMAZING MIRACLE 

At the close of the session that day Paul 
walked with reluctant feet toward the office of 
the Echo . 

It was with the greatest difficulty that he had 
shaken off the fellows one by one, — Melville, 
Roger Bell, Donald Hall, Billie Ransom, and 
the other boys; he had even evaded Converse 
who, having heard the good news, came jubi- 
lantly toward him with the words : 

“ 1920 is all right ! She never was yellow, 
and I knew she wouldn't change color at this 
late date." 

Paul smiled and passed on. Yes, he had 
done the square thing ; he knew it perfectly well. 
Nor did he regret his action. On the contrary 
he was more light-hearted than he had been for 
a long time. Nevertheless he did not exactly 
fancy the coming interview with Mr. Carter. 

He had called up the Echo, and by a bit of 
good fortune had managed not only to get into 
touch with the editorial office but to reach the 
publisher himself. If the business at hand 
were important, Mr. Carter would see him. It 


196 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

was important, Paul said. Then he might 
come promptly at four o’clock and the magnate 
would give him half an hour. 

It was almost four now. The hands of the 
clock were moving toward the dreaded moment 
only too fast. 

Soon, the boy reflected with a little shiver up 
his spine, he would be in the bare little sanctum 
of the great man, facing those piercing eyes and 
handing back the fifty-dollar bill that had lain 
in his pocket for so many weeks ; and he would 
be confessing that he had failed in his mission, 
— nay, worse than that, that he had not even 
tried to accomplish it. It would, of course, be 
impossible to explain how, when the crisis had 
come, something within him had leaped into be- 
ing, — something that had automatically pre- 
vented him from doing what was wrong and 
forced him to do what was right. He took 
small credit to himself for his deed. It was his 
good genius that deserved the praise. He won- 
dered idly as he went along whether this potent 
force had been his conscience or his soul. 
Well, it did not matter much; the result was the 
same. Conscience, soul, whatever it was, it 
was sending him back to Carter with that un- 
spent bribe money. 

He was glad of it. Had he but done this 
weeks before, he would have been spared days 
and weeks of uncertainty and worry. He real- 
ized now that he had never felt right, felt happy 


AN_ AMAZING MIRACLE 197 

about that bill. Yet although his bonds were 
now to be broken, and he was to be free at last, 
the shattering of his fetters was not to be a 
pleasant process. He knew Mr. Carter too 
well to deceive himself into imagining that the 
affair would pass off lightly. Mr. Carter was 
a proud man. He would not like having his 
gift hurled back into his face. Nor would he 
enjoy being beaten. Greater than any value 
he would set on the ownership of the March 
Hare would loom the consciousness that he had 
been defeated, balked by a lot of schoolboys, by 
one boy in particular. The incident would 
ruffle his vanity and annoy him mightily. 

It was with this knowledge that Paul stepped 
into the elevator. How he wished there was 
some escape from the approaching interview! 
If only Mr. Carter should prove to be busy, or 
be out ! 

But Mr. Carter was not busy, and he was not 
out ! On the contrary, the clerk told Paul that 
the great man was expecting him and had given 
orders that he was to come into the office as 
soon as he arrived. 

Gulping down a nervous tremor, the lad 
steadied himself and put his hand on the knob 
of the awful ground-glass door. Once on the 
other side of it and all retreat would be cut off. 
Not that he really wished to retreat. It was 
only that he dreaded. . . . The knob turned 
and he was inside the room. 


198 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

Mr. Carter was at his desk dictating a letter ; 
he finished the last sentence and motioned his 
stenographer to withdraw. He then asked Paul 
to sit down in the chair the girl had vacated. 

“Well, you’ve got some news for me,” he 
began without preamble. 

“Yes, sir,” Paul replied. “We had a class 
meeting to-day. I couldn’t put your deal 
through, Mr. Carter. I’m bringing back the 
money.” 

He laid the bill on the publisher’s desk. 

Mr. Carter paid no heed to the money. In- 
stead he kept his eyes on the boy before him, 
studying him through the smoke that clouded 
the room. 

“You couldn’t pull it off, eh?” he said 
sharply. “ I ’m sorry to hear that. What was 
the trouble ? ” 

“I did n’t try to pull it off.” 

“Didn’t try!” 

“No, sir.” 

“You mean you didn’t advise your staff to 
sell out ? ” 

“ I spoke against it.” 

“Against it!” snarled Carter, leaning for- 
ward in his chair. 

The room was breathlessly still. 

“You see,” explained the boy, “the more I 
thought about it the less I approved of what you 
wanted me to do. I tried to think it was 
straight but I didn’t really think so. When 


AN AMAZING MIRACLE 199 

the fellows asked my honest opinion, I simply 
had to tell them the truth.” 

Mr. Carter made no comment, nor did his 
eyes leave Paul’s face, but he drew his shaggy 
brows together and scowled. 

“ So,” went on Paul desperately, “ I ’ve 
brought your money back to you. It’s the 
same bill you gave me. I didn’t spend it. 
Somehow I could n’t bring myself to.” 

There was an awkward pause. Paul got to 
his feet. 

“ I ’m — I’m — sorry to have disappointed 
you, Mr. Carter,” he murmured in a low tone as 
he moved across the room to go. “ You have 
been mighty kind to us boys.” 

The door was open and he was crossing the 
threshold before the man at the desk spoke; 
then he called : 

“ Hold on a minute, son.” 

Paul turned. 

“ Shut that door.” 

Wondering, the boy obeyed. 

Mr. Carter took up the greenback lying be- 
fore him. 

“ So you ’ve been carrying that money round 
with you ever since I gave it to you, have you? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ It ’s a long time; some weeks.” 

“ Yes,” stammered Paul. “ I ought to have 
brought it back to you before.” 

“ I could charge you interest on it.” 


200 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


The smile that accompanied the speech es- 
caped Paul. 

“I'll pay whatever you think proper/’ he 
said. 

“ Nonsense, boy! I was only joking/’ the 
publisher hastened to say. “ But tell me some- 
thing; what was it you wanted that money for? 
You must have needed it badly or you would 
not have been threatening to sell out your Lib- 
erty Bond.” 

“ I was going to buy a typewriter, sir.” 

“ Oh ! And you did n’t get it. That was a 
pity.” 

The man tapped the edge of the bill he held 
against the desk thoughtfully. Paul waited 
for him to speak; but when after an interval he 
still remained silent the lad shifted uneasily 
from one foot to the other and remarked: 

“ I guess I ’ll be going along, sir. The half 
hour you were to give me is up.” 

Then Mr. Carter spoke. 

“ Will you shake hands with me, my boy, be- 
fore you go, or have you too poor an opinion of 
me for that?” 

“ Indeed I have n’t a poor opinion of you, Mr. 
Carter,” replied Paul, with hearty sincerity. 
“You have always been mighty good to me. 
It ’s true I did n’t like your March Hare propo- 
sition but — ” 

“ Your father has n’t much use for me either, 
I ’m afraid,” Mr. Carter observed moodily. 


AN AMAZING MIRACLE 201 

" Dad thinks you bought up the election. ,, 

“ He ’s right. I set out to win a majority in 
this town and I did it. But in order to beat a 
man as white as your father I had to resort 
to a pretty poor weapon. Everything was with 
him. Measured up side by side we were n’t in 
the same class. He was by far the better man 
and I knew it. I could n’t beat him as to char- 
acter but I could do it with money, and I did. 
It was a contemptible game. I ’ve always de- 
spised myself for playing it. I wish you ’d tell 
your dad so.” 

Paul could scarcely credit his ears. 

“And about this school business,” went on 
Mr. Carter — “you were just right, son. The 
school should continue the paper along the 
lines on which you have started it. It ought 
to remain the property of the students, too. 
All is, if next year they care to have the Echo 
print it, we’ll donate the labor free. The 
school can pay the actual cost of materials and 
I ’ll see to the rest of it. I can afford to do one 
decent thing for Burmingham, I guess.” 

“Oh, Mr. Carter,” gasped Paul, “that would 
be — ” 

But the man interrupted him. 

“And there’s a second-hand typewriter ly- 
ing round here somewhere that you can have if 
you like. We are getting a new one of another 
make. You won’t find this much worn I 
reckon, and I guess you can manage to get some 


202 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


work out of it. I 'll send it round to your house 
to-morrow in my car.” 

“ Why, sir, I can't — ” 

The great man put out his hand kindly. 

" There, there, run along! I'm busy,” he 
said. "Don’t forget my message to your 
father.” 

"No, sir.” 

Then he added hurriedly : 

"I don't know how to thank you, Mr. 
Carter.” 

"That’s all right,” nodded the publisher, 
cutting him short. " I 've always had the 
greatest respect for your father. Tell him 
from me that he needn't be ashamed of his 
son. ” 

With these parting words he waved Paul out 
of the office and the door closed. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE CLOUDS CLEAR 

When, glowing with happiness, Paul turned 
into his gate late in the afternoon, he was sur- 
prised to find Donald Hall impatiently pacing 
the driveway before the house. The boy’s 
bicycle was against the fence and it was evident 
that he had been waiting some time, for a 
bunch of lilacs tied to the handle-bar hung limp 
and faded in the sun. 

“ How are you, old man,” Paul called jubi- 
lantly. “What are you doing here?” 

“Hanging around until you should heave 
into sight. I must say you take your time. 
Your mother has been expecting you every 
minute since school closed.” 

“ I had to go to the Echo office and so got de- 
layed.” 

“ Did you tell Carter about the meeting? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How did he take it ? ” 

“He was great — corking!” 

“Really? I thought he’d cut up pretty 
rough.” 

“ So did I ; but he did n’t. He ’s more decent 


204 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

than I gave him credit for being. I like Carter. 
He’s all right.” 

“ You ’re the first person I ever heard say so.” 

“ Perhaps people don’t know him,” replied 
Paul warmly. “You can’t judge a man hot off 
the bat. You’ve got to try him out.” 

Donald broke into a laugh. 

“Oh, he’s been tried out all right. People 
know him too well; that’s the trouble.” 

Paul stiffened. 

“ Well, all I can say is that I ’ve found Carter 
mighty kind. He’s treated me white. If you 
knew as much about him as I do you ’d say so 
too. In the meantime I ’d thank you to remem- 
ber he ’s my friend and not run him down.” 

There was an awkward pause. Donald dug 
the toe of his shoe into the gravel walk and 
fidgeted uneasily. 

Paul waited a moment, then, attributing his 
chum’s silence to resentment, he added in a 
gentler tone : “ I did n’t mean to pitch into you 
so hard, old chap ; it ’s only that Carter has 
been so mighty generous that I couldn’t bear 
to have you light into him that way.” 

Donald, however, despite the conciliatory 
tone, did not raise his head. Instead he contin- 
ued to bore holes in the walk, automatically 
hollowing them out and filling them up again 
with the tip of his boot. 

Paul endured the suspense until at last he 
could not endure it any longer. 


THE CLOUDS CLEAR 


205 

“ I say, Don, what ’s fussing you ? ” he burst 
out. 

The visitor crimsoned. 

“What makes you think anything is?” he 
asked, hedging. 

“ Well, you would n’t be loafing around here, 
digging up our whole driveway, unless there 
was,” persisted Paul good-humoredly. “ Come, 
out with it ! You ’re the darndest kid for get- 
ting into messes. What’s happened to you 
now?” 

There was an affectionate ring in the banter- 
ing words. 

Donald smiled feebly. It was true that he 
was usually in some scrape or other. It was 
not that he did mean or vicious things ; Donald 
Hall was far too fine a lad for that. But he 
never could resist playing a prank, and when- 
ever he played one he was invariably caught. 
Even though every other member of the crowd 
got away, Donald never contrived to. The 
boys declared this was because he was slow and 
clumsy. But the truth really was that he was 
wont, in unselfish fashion, to let every one else 
go first and was in consequence the unlucky 
victim whom the pursuers were sure to capture. 
The fleeing culprits were generally in too great 
haste to appreciate his altruism and he never 
enlightened them. He took his punishment, 
loyally refusing to peach on his chums. That 
was one reason Donald was such a favorite 


206 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

with his classmates. There was not a fellow in 
the school who had more friends. To be sure 
they called him “slow coach”, “old tortoise”, 
“ fatty ”,and bestowed upon him many another 
gibing epithet, frankly telling him to his face 
that he was a big idiot. Nevertheless they did 
not conceal from him that he was the sort of 
idiot they all loved. 

Hence it followed that when Paul saw his 
chum in the present disturbed frame of mind 
he was much distressed and immediately leaped 
to the conclusion that for the hundredth — nay, 
the five hundredth — time Don had been caught 
in the snares of justice. 

“Come, come, Tortoise,” he repeated; “tell 
a chap what ’s up with you.” 

“ Kip,” burst out Donald with sudden vehe- 
mence, “I've done a mighty mean thing.” 

“You!” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Bosh! You never did a mean thing in 
your life, kid.” 

“But I have now,” smiled the lad wanly. 
“ They say there always has to be a first time. 
I did n’t start out to do it, though. Still, that 
does n’t help matters much, for it ’s ended that 
way.” 

“Going to let me in on it?” asked Paul, 
hoping to make the confession easier. 

“ Yes, I came over on purpose to tell you, Kip. 
It’s the queerest mix-up you ever heard of. 


THE CLOUDS CLEAR 


207 

It’s worried me no end. Sometimes, it’s 
seemed as if I was going nutty.” 

“ Fire ahead ! Tell a man, can’t you ? ” 

“Well, you see a while ago my father sent 
me to deposit some money in the bank for him 
— a hundred-dollar bill. I put the envelope in 
my pocket, carefully as could be. I remember 
perfectly doing it. I didn’t go anywhere but 
straight down town, either. Well, anyhow, 
when I got to the bank the money was gone! 
It wasn’t in my pocket; it wasn’t anywhere 
about me.” 

He stopped an instant. 

“You can imagine how I felt. My father 
had cautioned me not to lose that money on my 
life. I hadn’t the nerve to tell him. Some- 
how I thought that if I could just smooth the 
matter over for a little while the envelope with 
the money in it would turn up. I was certain 
I could n’t have lost it.” 

Again he paused. 

“ At first I thought I ’d sell a Liberty bond I 
had and put my hundred in the bank to dad’s 
credit. Then I happened to think that my 
father had the bond locked up in his safe-de- 
posit box and that I couldn’t get at it without 
telling him. I didn’t know what to do. I 
simply had n’t the courage to go home and tell 
the truth. You wouldn’t like to face your 
father and tell him you ’d lost a cool hundred of 
his cash for him. Besides, I was sure it was n’t 


208 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


lost. I felt morally certain I had somehow 
misplaced that envelope and that it would come 
to light. I hunted all day, though, through my 
pockets and everywhere I could think of and it 
did n’t appear. I began to get scared. What 
was I going to do? When the bank statement 
came in my father would see right off that the 
money had not been deposited. And anyway, 
even if he did n’t, it was only square to tell him 
what I ’d done. I was casting round for a way 
out when that noon Mel called me and asked 
me if I’d do an errand for him on the way 
home. He wanted me to stop at the bank as I 
passed and put in some March Hare money. 
It was a hundred dollars and it seemed to drop 
right out of the sky into my hands. I decided 
to deposit it to my father’s credit and trust to 
finding the sum I ’d lost to square up the school 
accounts.” 

A light of understanding began to break in 
on Paul. 

He waited. 

“ I guess you know what ’s coming,” Donald 
murmured. 

“ No, I don’t.” 

“Well, somebody does,” declared the boy 
wretchedly. “That’s what’s got me fussed. 
I chance to know how the March Hare books 
stood. Somebody’s made good that money I 
took — made it good without saying a word 
about it.” 


THE CLOUDS CLEAR 


209 

Donald, studying his friend’s face, saw a 
gleam of satisfaction pass over it. 

“Kip!” he whispered, “was it you? Did 
you put the money back when you found it gone 
from the treasury? ” 

“Mel and I divided it. We found the ac- 
counts short and of course we had to do some- 
thing. We thought we’d made a mistake in 
the books,” explained Paul. “ So we turned in 
the sum and evened things up.” 

“Without telling anybody?” 

“Yes; what was the use of blabbing it all 
over town?” 

“Gee!” 

Donald fumbled in his pocket. 

“ Well, I ’ve found the hundred, Kip. Here 
it is safe and sound. The envelope had slipped 
down through a hole in the lining of my pocket. 
The other day when I was hunting for my foun- 
tain pen, I discovered the rip. You bet I was 
glad. I’d have made that money good some- 
how. I was n’t going to take it. I hope you ’ll 
believe I ’m not such a cad as that. But what I 
ought to have done was to tell my father in the 
first place. It’s been an awful lesson to me. 
I ’ve worried myself thin — I have, Kip. You 
need n’t laugh.” 

Nevertheless, Paul did laugh. He couldn’t 
help it when he looked at Donald’s conscience- 
smitten expression. Moreover he could now 
afford to laugh. 


2io PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


But Donald was not so easily consoled. 

“Pm almighty sorry, Kip,” he said. “The 
whole thing has been rotten. Think of you and 
Mel Carter turning in your cash to make the 
bank accounts square. Where on earth did 
you each get your fifty? ” 

“ Some of it was money I ’d earned and put 
aside toward a typewriter; and the rest I got 
by cashing in my war stamps.” 

“ Oh, I say!” 

Regret and mortification overwhelmed the 
culprit. 

“ It ’s no matter now, Don.” 

“ But it is, old chap. I suppose that knocked 
you out of buying your typewriter. It’s a 
darn shame.” 

“ I was pretty sore, Don — no mistake ! ” ad- 
mitted Paul. “But it’s all right now. The 
accounts are O. K. ; I shall get my money back ; 
and I have a typewriter into the bargain. Mr. 
Carter has just given me a second-hand ma- 
chine they weren’t using.” 

“ Did he know about this muddle? ” 

“ Not a yip ! He did know, though, that I 
wanted the typewriter.” 

“Well, I’ll take back all I ever said about 
him,” cried Donald. “ He ’s a trump ! As for 
you, Kip — you deserve a hundred typewriters ! 
It ’s all-fired good of you not to rub this in. I 
know I ’ve caused you a lot of trouble and I ’m 
sorry. That ’s all I can say.” 


THE CLOUDS CLEAR 


21 1 


“ Shut up, Tortoise. It ’s all right now,” re- 
peated Paul. “Only don’t go appropriating 
any more funds that don’t belong to you. We 
might jail you next time. Taking other 
people’s cash is n’t much of a stunt.” 

“You bet it isn’t!” cried Donald heartily. 
“ When you do it you think it ’s going to be easy 
as fiddle to slip it back again; but it doesn’t 
seem to turn out that way. Jove, but I ’m glad 
I ’m clear of this mess 1 ” 

“I guess we both will sleep better to-night 
than we have for one while,” called Paul, mov- 
ing toward the house. “ So long, Don ! ” 

“ So long, Kipper. And don’t you go losing 
that money. It’s caused too much worry al- 
ready.” 

“I’ll take care of it — don’t you fuss about 
that. There are no rips in my coat lining.” 

Thus they parted — the happiest pair of boys 
in all Burmingham. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


GRADUATION 

Thus did Paul’s troubles dissolve in air and 
with the June winds blow far away. In the 
meantime graduation came and the essay he 
delivered was clicked off on Mr. Carter’s type- 
writer which, considering the fact that it was 
a second-hand one, was an amazingly fresh and 
unscarred machine. 

Nor was this all. After the graduation ex- 
ercises had come to a close, and the audience 
was passing out of the building, Mr. Cameron 
and the publisher of the Echo came face to 
face in the corridor. They had not met since 
the famous mayoral campaign when Carter, by 
means of wholesale bribery, had swept all be- 
fore him. Hence the present encounter was 
an awkward one and many a citizen of Bur- 
mingham stopped to witness the drama. Had 
the two men been able to avoid the clash they 
would undoubtedly have done so; but the hall- 
way was narrow and escape was impossible. 
Here they were wedged in the crowd, each of 
them having come hither to see his son take his 


GRADUATION 


213 

diploma. It was a day of rejoicing and no time 
for grudges. 

Melville was at his father’s elbow while at 
Mr. Cameron’s heels tagged Paul, hot, tired, 
but victorious. 

The instant the group collided the magnate’s 
hand shot out and gripped that of the editor-in- 
chief of the March Hare. 

“Well, youngster, I’m proud of you!” he 
exclaimed. “ You did well. We shall be mak- 
ing a newspaper man of you yet.” 

Then, glancing up into the face of the lad’s 
father, he added with hesitating graciousness : 

“I — I — congratulate you on your son, 
Cameron.” 

Mr. Cameron was not to be outdone. 

“ And I on yours, Mr. Carter. Melville is a 
fine boy. You must be glad that he has done 
so well.” 

“ Oh, Melville’s not perfect,” declared Mr. 
Carter, obviously pleased, “ but he is all the boy 
we ’ve got and we like him.” 

There was a pause. 

“ Our young representatives have done pretty 
well on this paper of theirs, have n’t they ? ” re- 
marked Mr. Carter the next moment. 

“ They certainly have,” agreed Mr. Cameron. 
“ The March Hare is a very readable and cred- 
itable little magazine. You’ve done both the 
school and the community a service, Carter, by 
printing it.” 


214 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 

“ I Ve made some blunders in my life, Cam- 
eron, for which I have since been very sorry,” 
the rich man said, looking significantly into Mr. 
Cameron’s eyes. “But printing the March 
Hare was not one of them, thank God! We 
consider the school paper well worth printing,” 
he added in a lighter tone. “ Everything the 
Echo prints is worth while, you know.” 

Mr. Cameron laughed at the jest. 

“ I Ve been dragged into reading your august 
publication, you know,” said he. “ I subscribed 
to it against my will, I must own; however, I 
must confess that I have enjoyed it very much. 
If you ’d change your party, Carter, and come 
into the proper political fold — ” 

Mr. Carter held up his hand. 

“No propaganda, Cameron!” he declared 
good-naturedly. “We must learn wisdom of 
our children. Their paper is quite non-parti- 
san. In fact,” he continued, lapsing into seri- 
ousness, “the younger generation teaches us 
many things. I’ve learned a lesson or two 
from your son. You have put a great deal of 
your fineness of principle into him, Cameron. 
I hope you realize what a deep respect I enter- 
tain for you. I have always regretted the oc- 
currences that parted us. If I had my life to 
live over again, my dear sir, there are some of- 
fenses that I should not repeat. An honor that 
one wins by foul means is an empty one. I took 
an unfair advantage of an honorable gentleman 


GRADUATION 


215 

in the campaign of 1916 and I have always been 
sorry and longed to tell you so. I now offer 
you my hand. It is the only amendment I can 
make for the past.” 

The apology was a handsome one and Mr. 
Cameron was a big enough man to be forgiv- 
ing. 

Taking his enemy’s palm in a warm grasp he 
said: 

“We all blunder sometimes, Carter.” 

“An honest blunder is one thing; but pre- 
meditated meanness is quite another, Cameron. 
However, I appreciate your generosity. It is 
like you — on the same scale with the rest of 
your nature.” Then to shift a subject that 
was embarrassing he remarked : “ As for these 
young rascals of ours, I suppose a great career 
awaits each of them after college is over. 
Your son has a better brain than mine; but 
they are both promising fellows. I’d like to 
land Paul in an editorial position. He has a 
decided gift for such a job. Perhaps later on 
I may be able to help him, should he decide to 
take up such work permanently. I should be 
very proud to be of service either to you or him, 
Cameron.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” replied Mr. Cameron cour- 
teously. 

Amid the pressing crowd they separated, the 
parents to go home in a mood of satisfaction 
and happiness, and the boys to continue the 


216 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


day’s festivities with a class banquet and a 
dance. 

That banquet was a never-to-be-forgotten 
affair! 

For weeks the class officers had been planning 
it and no detail was omitted that could add mer- 
riment and joy to the crowning event of 1920’s 
career. 

No sooner were the guests seated at the long 
table and the spread fairly begun than a stuffed 
rabbit, exquisitely decorated with the class col- 
ors, was borne into the room. This was, of 
course, the far-famed March Hare. Its ad- 
vent was greeted with a storm of clapping. 

Very solemnly it was elevated in Paul’s hands 
and amid shouts and cheers was carried by the 
graduating editor-in-chief to the president of 
1921 where, with an appropriate speech, it was 
surrendered into the keeping of the incoming 
seniors. 

Then the banquet went on only to have its 
progress interrupted at intervals by bustling 
attendants who came rushing in with telegrams, 
special delivery letters, and telephone messages 
from the Hatter, the Red Queen, the Dor- 
mouse, and many another well-beloved Won- 
derland character. Afterward the Walrus and 
the Carpenter sang a song and then, with great 
acclaim and a crash of the orchestra, the fold- 
ing doors opened and Alice herself, imperson- 
ating 1921, entered, gathered up the March 


GRADUATION 


217 

Hare , and with a graceful little poem of fare- 
well to 1920 took the head of the table. 

With a sigh glad yet regretful, Paul sur- 
rendered his place. 

He had longed for the day when he should be 
graduating from school and setting forth for 
college; but now that the moment had really 
arrived, he found himself not nearly so glad 
to depart from the High School as he had ex- 
pected to be. Many a pleasant memory clus- 
tered about the four years he had spent in those 
familiar classrooms. And the comrades of 
those years, — he was parting from them, too. 
Some were scattering to the various colleges ; 
some were going into business ; others were to 
remain at home. Never again would they all 
travel the same path together. Alas, gradua- 
tion had its tragic as well as its happy aspects ! 

Perhaps some such thought as this lurked 
deep down in the breast of every member of 
1920, but for the sake of one another, and to 
make the last moments they were to spend to- 
gether unclouded by sadness, each bravely 
struggled to banish this sinister reflection. 

Hence the dance that followed the banquet 
was an uproarious affair. When one is young 
and all the world lies before, the conqueror 
Gloom is short-lived. So 1920 danced gayly 
until midnight, forgetful of every shadow, and 
when weary, sleepy, but triumphant, a half- 
jubilant, half-sorrowful lot of girls and boys 


218 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS 


betook themselves to their homes, it was with 
ringing cheers for the Burmingham High 
School, the class of 1920, the March Hare, Mr. 
Carter, its printer, and Paul Cameron, its edi- 
tor-in-chief. 




















































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